Through My Shades: Crooked Smile (Pt 1)

Through My Shades: Crooked Smile (Pt. 1)

My whole life I have been put under a microscope. Not only did I grow up with the peer pressure that every child faces in school but I grew up in a very conservative and strict household as a Pastor's child. As if the pressure of being a child wasn't hard enough I had to deal with it from people in my church to my parents.  I felt this enormous pressure to be "perfect" and to

do things the "right" way which was very hard for me. 

 I never really let my feelings be put on display and kept to myself about the self-esteem issues that I dealt with. I battled constantly with what I looked like and what I wanted to look like.  From being self-conscious about what I saw as flaws such as my weight, or the gap in my smile to the long legs I had inherited from Dad, which was not proportionate with my body.  I was not popular, nor the cool kid on the block and I struggled to find my own as a teenager developing into a woman.  After a relationship that went sour, my insecurities and self evaluation only increased.  I questioned over and over was I not beautiful enough or maybe I wasn't skinny enough or maybe I was not smart enough, so that is why the relationship did not work out.  I cried often, slept constantly trying to drown out the pain. 

  I dealt majorly with self-esteem issues and I just did not love myself. 
In fact, I hated myself.  I dealt with my insecurities in the oddest way by studying.  I studied hard in school, trying to prove to myself that I was good for something.  Studying transported me to another world and was therapeutic for me in so many ways.  It kept my mind from wondering or being depressed.  

After a hard first year in college, I visited NYC for the summer with my best friend and it was then that I realized that it was the first time I felt secure in who I was.  No one judged me and I wasn't under any microscope at all.  I could be me.  For the first time I was proud to have my differences. I was celebrated for my differences.  After the third visit I knew that I could not live anywhere else. I even cried on a flight back to Arkansas because it just sickened me to have to return to such a judgmental and what seemed to be lifeless state.  

I made up in my mind that I was going to do everything that it took to move after school. Of course with me telling people that I was moving to NYC  I got mixed reviews but I did not care. This was one change that I was not going to let others peoples opinions dictate.  Call it what you want, but NYC saved me in so many ways.