130…132…135…stop! stop! I thought to myself as I watched the little green digital numbers creep their way up in front of my eyes. When the numbers finally stopped I uttered more than a few four letter words at the scale and drew in a deep sigh as I leapt off of it, eager to see those numbers disappear forever. I then looked at my morose expression in the mirror, my large nose, my blah-colored hair, and all the other flaws that only I truly see stare back at me. When are you going to stop this? I thought to myself. Why can’t I just be happy being me and with what I look like?

As long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to look like someone else. When I was in the second grade I wanted to have straight brown hair (mine is darker and wavier) and glasses (I have 20/20 vision), because the object of my affection’s object of affection had straight brown hair and wore glasses. In middle school I wanted to wear knee-high socks and hoop earrings because I remember how two gorgeous seventh-graders in my class wore just that to PE class every day and looked like goddesses (or what it seemed like to me at the time). In high school I wanted to be rail thin and eat whatever I wanted (I’m not and I can’t), because one of the most popular girls in school could eat all the junk she wanted, still fit into a size two, and always had a string of boys in tow.  This led to a years-long nasty relationship with food that I eventually broke free from. I even used to pray when I was little that God would make me beautiful when I grew up; something along the lines of  “and please make me look just like Jennifer Connelly when I get older ” was what I said, because I remember having watched The Labyrinth some ten times, having been so enchanted and jealous that someone could be so pretty. It was like she hogged all the “pretty” in the world for herself and left none for me. I prayed and asked to be transformed, like some ugly duckling turning into a swan.

Being women many of us are used to this kind of thinking. We always wish to change things about ourselves, and desire what we don’t have; if we have straight hair we curl it, if we have curly hair we get a Brazilian blowout, if we’re stick thin we get crazy butt injections, and if we’re curvier we diet and exercise like crazy to lose it all. This type of vanity can become a crazy desire to be something we’re not, to look like someone we aren’t.

For years I wished I were rail thin/had a smaller waist/ had blonde hair/had blue eyes/had a smaller nose, etc. I remember thinking as I looked at some of my gorgeous friends that wow, I wonder what it would be like to look like her? Wouldn’t life be so much easier? Thing is, I’ve never been told by anyone that I’m completely hideous or anything. In fact, I’m probably fairly decent looking and am petite, with a curvier, more athletic build. But we know how that goes; we’re our own worst critics, our own worst enemies.  To me I was never enough. Never thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough. I would always think to myself, if I just had the face of a Victoria’s Secret model and a J.Lo body, my life would be SET. I mean, it would be SET! I wouldn’t have to worry about anything!

After a recent ride on the weight loss/weight gain/self doubt train in which I vowed yet again to metamorphose into a completely different version of myself, I asked a male friend whose opinion I really value what he thought of “curvier” women like Mariah Carey, because I land more on her end of the spectrum than the oh, say, Keira Knightley end. I mean, let’s face it, Miss Carey is gorgeous, but not tiny. What threw me was that the same guy who once told me he was into “teeny tiny girls” then said with enthusiasm ,“oh, she looks goooood!”. Huh? When I questioned him on it, he said that every girl is different, and it’s the girl who makes herself sexy, not where her curves, or lack thereof, sit.

I became frustrated as I thought, so one minute men want some model-thin girl, the next they want a girl with junk in the trunk? Standing there on that scale I then came to a realization: if I’m always chasing an another person’s ideal, it will never be attainable and I will never be satisfied, because one day that ideal will be a thin, Gwyneth Paltrow-like body that people want, the next it’s Kim Kardashian’s curves that are all the rage.  I will always chase after someone else’s look and never learn to appreciate my own, which I should do because ultimately I can never look like anyone else because I’m not anyone else. I’m only me. You can’t waste precious time obsessing or bemoaning the fact that you don’t look like some celebrity or someone else in a pair of jeans, because life is too short to obsess over something so trivial. Sure, I still want to look my best and be proud of what I look like, but I’ll continue to workout and dress myself up to play up my hair, my body, my features, my personality, my traits. Women need to take pride in what they look like, what they have to bring to the table, and not lament the fact that they don’t look like someone else. Impose a little of that type of vanity on themselves, in a good way, to bring out that self-respect and pride in what they have to offer.

I thought of the way my son runs up to me after a long day at work, with nothing but love and adoration in his eyes. He doesn’t see the back fat, the stretch marks from carrying him, the way I think my nose appears bigger when I smile too widely. He just sees his mama, who he sees as completely perfect in his eyes. Stooping down to pick up that scale, I made my way to the closet to put it away and I thought, maybe it’s time I view myself the same way.