True Love

            I was fourteen years old and my brother, Richard, and I were playing outside with our bright blue kick balls. I remembered Richard’s voice saying, Ew what are those? Are those pimples on your legs! My legs were covered with these bright red little bumps that looked like dots that started from my ankle and ended half way up my thigh. I never knew what they were but that day I began to worry about them.

            Richard always picked on me for my red dotted legs. I would go swimming or go for a walk in my favorite pair of shorts and my brother would point the dots out to all his friends and then before I knew it, they all would be screaming names out. Hey, polka dots, come here. Hey, you shaved your legs today, Miss Razor Bumps! I would run home crying, and I never wore shorts in the summer. I always wore black leggings or sweat pants no matter how hot it was outside.

            My friends (Cody, Riley, and Natalia), would also talk to me about my legs and ask what those bumps were, and I would reply with the only thing I could really say, I am not sure, I was born with them. I never felt comfortable with my legs. Every night I would rub handfuls of lotion on them in hopes that the bumps would go away. I was afraid to ask my mother about the bumps because I felt like she would judge me and look at my legs as if something was majorly wrong with me or possibly laugh at me like everyone else did.

            After a few weeks, I started pointing out everything I didn’t like on my body, such as my face, then my legs, and ending with my overall appearance to myself in the mirror. I noticed these dry patches that would appear on my face under my right eye. The dry spots were three patches, one small, one medium, and one large circle that ended up turning bright red. I would try all types of lotions, including Bath and Body Works, Victoria Secret, Aveeno, and Eucerin. The Bath and Body Works, the Victoria Secret, and the Eucerin lotion made my face fiery red and burn as if there was acid melting my skin away. The Aveeno lotion worked at first and then eventually it did nothing but made my face softer for five to ten minutes.

I kept seeing videos on Facebook about how to moisturize your face and how to make your skin softer and I tried almost every single routine that was in those videos. One video I watched was called skin care for men and it talked about exfoliating the skin, why one should moisturize, and how to find a good moisturizer. That was when I began to look for my cure as I called it. I tried multiple moisturizers such as Aveeno, CeraVe, Vaseline, and Dove. Once again, nothing but failure. I continued to watch YouTube videos on moisturizers and one video called Neutrogena Moisture Review discussed how wonderful it worked and cleared the skin. I figured what else do I have to lose, so I went out and I purchased the Neutrogena Moisturizer from Target for about eight dollars. I would put the moisturizer on the minute I woke up and then before bed and after my night shower. I would reapply the moisturizer. I tried it for about 2-3 weeks. It worked well but it still did not completely take these blemishes away. The dryness vanished but the red circles stayed with me.

            My daily routine began by applying different moisturizers and then foundation to cover and hide those spots and wearing leggings or some type of pants to hide my hideous legs. That didn’t end my insecurity and disgust for my body. A few weeks after noticing my legs and my face, my group of “friends” pointed out that I started to gain a lot of weight. Before I knew it, the entire school, bus, and my “friends” referred to me as muffin top.

            Muffin Top. It sounds like a funny phrase and something I probably would have laughed about if it wasn’t me, but I couldn’t. I used to wear t-shirts, tank tops, and dresses all the time but after everyone called me muffin top everything changed. I no longer had the guts to walk outside without wearing the biggest sweat shirt I had or a jacket that would cover my “fat”. I started to you-tube many different diets and exercises in hopes to get motivated to lose weight. I watched videos on Skinny bunny tea, water detoxes, smoothies, and tons of extreme exercise challenges that were hours long. I wanted to work out but I couldn’t fit in the time to go to the gym between my softball schedule, my parents’ work schedule, and my homework time. Since I couldn’t exercise, I started to cut back on eating which made me come to the point where I just would not eat.

            I ended up falling into depression and getting so insecure that I would not go anywhere with my friends. I would stay inside and sit in my room. My mother started to get worried about me. She would ask me things such as if I was okay or if I needed to go see a doctor, but I told her I was fine and that I was just tired from school work. It was a lie, but I was terrified and I was depressed. I never thought it would be a bad thing to just let my sadness and hatred for myself hidden but it didn’t end there, it got worse.

            I didn’t want to eat, and I grew an attitude towards everything. I would have such a bad attitude for everything such as when my father, Richard, would ask if I had any homework and I would just scream, Shut up, homework is stupid.  I remember slamming the door every time I went up into my bedroom and my father yelling and I would just curse at him. I would break down and just get super angry and upset at my mother for things that I didn’t before. I remember yelling at my mother for asking me how my school day went. I threw my book bag down in the middle of the living room and I screamed that I hated living here and that I hated school, which everyone knew was a lie because I love school and I love homework (as unusual as that sounds coming from a teenager in 9^th grade). I slacked on my homework and I would just sleep all the time. At this point, my mother was extremely concerned.

            I came home from school on the second to last half day before spring break and my mother made me sit down and talk to her. I told her everything was fine and she kept going on and on about how she knew I was lying. I eventually told her everything from my legs to being called muffin top to not eating and being depressed. She looked at me with her bright blue eyes and this straight serious face for about five minutes while we sat in silence. That moment was broken with her laughing. I was confused as to why she was laughing at me for being insecure and depressed.

            At that very moment I realized, she wasn’t worried anymore because she knew that by her laughing I would know how ridiculous I was being. She told me everything I needed to hear. She began to tell me about the day I was born, how my cheeks always had these red patchy dry spots on them. The nurse assistant who was helping the doctor that delivered me told my mother it was eczema and that it was a condition that could be resolved by a special type of lotion. Eczema is a condition in which patches of skin become rough and inflamed and are caused by a reaction to irritation which is most commonly known for not having an obvious external cause.  My mother of course tried preventing my insecurities that started by trying Eucerin cream, Eucerin lotion, and even Eucerin body wash on me when I was younger to find out later that I was allergic to them and it made matters worse because it irritated it even more and made them burn, which is why the lotion made my skin burn when I tried it. Eventually those patches became smaller and at one point vanished. She never knew they would come back when they did.  The same issue that was happening to my face was also the same problem with my legs, which is why I still have the bumps today. The problem with my weight gain wasn’t because I became lazy or over eating but the fact that I was stressed out from all the bullying and worrying I was doing because once I talked to my mother about everything I just felt this heavy weight lift off of my shoulders.  

            After I heard that, I started looking in the mirror and seeing myself differently. Those patches on my face they weren’t ugly blotches anymore, they were a part of me and because of those blotches I learned that moisturizing my face makes it super smooth therefore I stuck with Neutrogena and I stopped wearing make-up every day. Those bright red “pimples” weren’t visible in my eyes anymore and they began to become invisible in my eyes and with that my dresser drawers became filled with new shorts. My weight started to go down and I started to eat healthy and began maintaining my weight.

            Today I look back at the time I was ten years old and that entire year I realize I learned a lot about life. To enjoy every moment of your life you cannot hate yourself or see yourself as disgusting but rather look at all your flaws as unique parts of you that make you who you are. Today, I watch all these videos of women and men that have “flaws” that they grew to love and it helps me remember every day that I am who I am and not a single word is going to bring me down. I also learned that my shape of my body and my dry skin and my “polka dot” legs will not define me. I will be strong and I will begin every day loving myself. True love is not love for another person but rather true love is loving the body you were born in and loving the body you are breathing and living with today. I now own more than 20 dresses, 25 pairs of shorts, and tank tops of all styles and summer is now my favorite season because I can embrace the real me.