Have you ever picked up a magazine at a salon just to mindlessly flip through each page so time can pass by? I remember scanning each page, my fingers tracing the pictures of fragile fair skinned girls with silky hair, clear skin, a tall nose bridge, and a perfectly sized pair of lips. As a 10 year old, I was fascinated, completely in awe of how unreal and majestic each model looked. I never would have thought carelessly flipping through a magazine would change the way I perceive myself, but it did. Out of the roster of petite beautiful girls imprinted on the magazine covers, none of them looked like me.

Ever since then, I felt self critical about my appearance. Each time I looked in the mirror, I was pained to see a tan Asian with a big mushroom nose. I didn’t just hate the way I looked, I despised it. I avoided looking at myself in pictures, and in reflections. Every time I saw myself, I was reminded of what I wasn’t. I can vividly recall a day when I was twelve I came home from school and glared at the mirror that stood adjacent to my night stand. Why was it that the person I was looking at didn’t feel like me? Out of anger, I turned the mirror to face the wall and didn’t dare to look at it again until the next morning. And so the pattern continued. Everyday, after I used the mirror in the morning to check my outfits, I turned it around. The longer I looked at myself, the more insecure I felt about different aspects of my body that weren’t just on my face. My weight, my bone structure, the fat on my arms, and how big my thighs looked became an obsession.

“Jealousy is the ugliest trait to have,” my mom used to say this to me a lot. “You’re the better version of me. All of your flaws are all features I wanted in myself. You’re lucky to have them.” As sweet as those words were, none of them really stuck, they came in one ear and out the next. I didn’t think she meant any of those words.

I will never forget one day in sophomore year when one of my friends compared me to a K-pop Idol. He said, “Why do you look like that and she looks so good?” It may have been teasing to him, but it was no fun to me. It was a question that I always used to ask myself, to hear it from an outside point of view deteriorated my self esteem even more. Ever since then, I started putting on makeup like bb creams and wearing outfits that I thought would make me look attractive to boys and girls. I needed to look like a celebrity. I tried conforming to what I thought was the standard.

But slowly my view of the beauty industry changed. There was so much talk on the internet about celebrities getting surgeries, whitening creams, and rhinoplasties. Artists that looked like me were given appreciation for their South East Asian features that I thought I despised. Fans from around the world wrote articles about how their idols looked so beautiful with larger and differently shaped noses that resembled them. Instead of being jealous of celebrities like Wonyoung from IVE, I found representation in artists like Chaewon from LE_SEEERAFIM. She showed me that having a non-skinny nose can be attractive. I didn’t like feeling controlled by what I saw in photoshopped pictures and comparing myself to a person that wasn’t real. I tried to stop caring about what others thought no matter how hard it was. Looking good wasn’t the issue, it was feeling good in my own skin: self love. I surrounded myself with people who reminded me that beauty comes in different forms.

Although I still struggle with loving myself, I can say now that I feel confident in what I look like. I think I look pretty, even on my lowest days. And to all those girls who were just like me, I want you to know you are loved regardless. The beauty in you is from the love you have in yourself.

© Cayla. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.