There is Nothing Wrong With Me

We’ve all seen it or heard about it: self-hatred or self-loathing. Women and young girls appear to be more susceptible to the images that are inundating them. Air brushed images of celebrities convince us that we should hate our imperfect bodies, that we should be ashamed of our average faces.

But there’s another type of self-hatred, the type where we are forced to examine ourselves and, for whatever reason, find that we don’t like what we see. Acceptance of these negative perceptions is a choice. We don’t have to accept them. We have the choice to love our natural selves and realize that behind closed doors those seemingly flawless celebrities have flaws. They just have endless amounts of cash, make-up artists, stylists, photographers, etc. who make them appear flawless. So, when we understand this, there’s no reason for us to beat up ourselves, right? Right. And if we ever look at our own self and not like what we have become, we, of course, can change. One of my favorite quotes is, “If you don’t like where you are, get up and move. You’re not a tree.”

Still, though loving our self is a choice, there are still people who choose to dislike themselves. I wish I could find every one of those people, especially the young ladies, and tell them how wonderful they are. This poem came to me because I had a vision of a young lady standing in front of a mirror and worse than loathing herself, she detested the person she had become. It wasn’t a lack of physical beauty, but deep-seated unhappiness with the way her life had turned out.

The woman staring back from inside the mirror

is not me. She is a stranger to me, the type of person

you are embarrassed to say you know, but

still you hold onto because��

I do not like her, though she resembles me, she

has dimples so deep on both of her cheeks

that it seems like I could fall in and become lost,

she has a face framed with perfect red

ring curls, and glasses that rest on the bridge

of her nose, but her eyes reveal something that

disgusts me. And that��s why I dislike her.

If I passed her by on the street, I would not stop

and speak, unless she spotted me before I saw her and

forced me to acknowledge her by speaking to me first.

People tell me I should forgive her, but they don��t understand

all the ways she has hurt me. She has never loved me, doesn��t

even try, no matter how much I implore her to.

She loves others more than she has ever loved me.

The person staring back at me from the mirror

accepts other people��s trash as if though it were treasure.

She is nothing like me, at least, nothing like I��ve ever

wanted to be. Do you know she once fell in love with

a man who said he could never love her, not the way

she was. So, she tried to change to be someone he could

love. Just another one of those people you hold on to because��

And, do you know, that she��s even had the nerve

to stand in line waiting on her turn to be loved ?

Not just once, but many many times.

Love is not a buffet.

You don��t have to wait your turn. It��s a full-service diner.

When you��re in the presence of love, you just know it

because there��s no waiting in a serving line. If the love is true,

the person who loves you will leave all others behind

just to hold on to you, because��of love.

Yes, she loves others more than she has ever loved me.

And that woman, she keeps me up night after night

trying to figure out how to win love, even though

I��ve told her that love is not a prize to be won

after a competition like climbing a mountain in the

snow or carrying the most burdens to show

that she��s no average woman. She��s a Super woman.

She loves others more than she has ever loved me.

And that��s why tonight, while she��s sleeping or pretending

to sleep, I��m going to sneak out of the house and I��m

going somewhere where the mirrors are cleaner. I��m leaving.

I��m going to find a better me. One who is able to see

that the reason she doesn��t like what she sees in the mirror

is that the fingerprints on the mirror cloud her vision and

keep her from seeing who she should really be in love with. Me.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

* Note: The title of this post and the contents of the poem were purposefully meant to convey contradictory messages because hating self is rarely a full-time job. Instead, it usually comes in highs and lows. Sometimes we hate ourselves and sometimes we are proud of who we have become despite all that we have gone through.