Insecure Looking?

I remember when I bought my first Cosmopolitan magazine when I was sixteen years old and I was amazed that the girls on the covers and in the magazine articles had such perfect skin, bodies, and hair. I kept thinking that I was making a mistake somewhere along the line. I wasn't developing fast enough when I was young and I was kind of gawky, so I really felt like an outsider then. I guess that was the start of my problem. You are always convinced that these girls were perfect from the day they were born. I didn't have an easy childhood, especially in my teens. I wasn't the fast developed one, like some of the cheerleader types or the bimbo blonde types who had the pick of their boyfriends. I had a succinct group of friends who were all pretty much the outcasts. I never realized that this was an advantage then, especially in a creative sense, because I still longed to be, "just like everyone else." That feeling of secret competitiveness always stayed with me, even when my friends didn't really care.

Chris Rock said it best when he described high school, "It's like prison without the ass-raping." You can expect mental and sometimes physical abuse if you don't meet a certain criteria. Unfortunately that is a Russian Roulette type of situation. You could be the best student in the world with the best grades, the best attendance record, and the best behavioral record, but have the hardest social life in the known universe. That can kick the shit out of your self-esteem, but I kind of had a two-fold thing going on. There is one key factor that you tend to forget when all is said and done, you can become very tough! That happened to me. So rather than being just an outcast, I was just one of those creative types who ended up not graduating with my class for other concrete reasons. I ended up living life without a code, which made me feel better about some aspects of beauty. Although I still struggled with it, I was better able to deal with it when I embarked on my young adulthood. You aren't answering to anyone and you are free to find your own way.

So now in my thirties instead of reading Cosmopolitan, I read Vogue magazine. I can't really tell if the standard of beauty or the code of perfection is worse than it was when I was reading Cosmopolitan. The clothes are definitely more expensive and the models are definitely more svelte than they used to be. The friends that I surround myself with now aren't as concerned with how I look or how they look. I guess that doesn't really put as much pressure on me. The funny thing is now I put even more pressure on myself. I keep saying, "I'm too fat, my skin is blotchy, and my hair needs desperate help!" Even worse than that is now it goes to materialism. I never really cared about that when I was younger and suddenly, out of nowhere, I want designer items. It's not even the name, but the quality of the goods. I hate that I've raised the bar that high for myself. I don't want to be the bobo chick who feels the need to overspend themselves just to buy that Gucci bag, but sometimes I wonder if that is part of my insecurity. There is a definite difference between that and having nice things. I see the clothing and makeup though and I have to say that I always wish that I was that perfect. I still have that nagging feeling that there is someone pointing at me and saying, "Look at her!" That's something that I hoping to overcome because, every once in a while, I still feel like that high-school girl.