Letters for Love

03. Dear Insecurity

          Dear Insecurity,

We've known each other for a long time. You moved in next door in my first year of public school, 6th grade. Your friend Fear and I were well acquainted already. From the time that I watched Peter Pan and saw Captain Hook, they were there waving at me. However I did not realize that the three of us would become closer.

The first time I saw you my parents were yelling at me. They pushed relentlessly on my low grades and compared me to my perfect younger sister, who in my parents' eyes, could do no wrong. The louder the yelling, the closer you approached and when they finished, you and I had already become acquainted.

During school, this girl drew a picture of me and showed everyone in class. It was a drawing of me with a pig nose, widened stomach, and baggy pants. She drew me short with two straight lines for eyes and laughed, pleased with her work. That was the first time I was conscious of what I looked like, the first time I was ashamed of my race.

When tryouts for the orchestra came along you told me not to go for first chair. You told me that if I tried I would fail, you said that people wouldn't want to see a face so contorted and ugly in the front, and there was nothing to stop you, so I didn't do it.

When my teacher told me that I was exceptional in writing, you told me that she was lying. But my teacher handed me a small fragile gift, and inside I found Confidence. You never liked them, you always told me to stay away from the toxic hope they offered me.
But, Confidence was sweet and kind and I became putty to the scent of their aura.

When I began to like a boy, Confidence would cheer me on and push me to tell him the feelings that I had long kept to myself, but you, Insecurities, willed me to pursue comfortability. You coerced me to believe that staying beside you would never disappoint me. That where discomfort was, rejection and failure lurked behind. And I believed you.

Every

Single

Time.

The more power I gave you, the more distance was wedged between Confidence and I.

I went to wash my hands one day. Turned on the bathroom lights, rinsed with soap, and when I went to inspect myself in the mirror, the reflection staring back at me was so hideous that I couldn't bare to look at it. I hurriedly dried my hands and stepped out of the bathroom. I clutched the wall with ragged breaths as you screamed at me,

"Why are you so ugly?"

Repeatedly over and over again, but this time Confidence did not appear, and she never did again.

Girls at my school would ask me why I wouldn't wear makeup, and that if I did, I would look so much prettier. As a young child I told myself that I wouldn't wear it because there was no need for it, but the constant pressuring of my peers rendered me helpless as I began to purchase foundation and concealer to hide the acne that covered my face. You loved that.

This beautified mask protected me, or at least I thought it did. You told me that it did. That people would like me more because I was prettier, but even then I could not gain the approval of my fellow classmates. Even with makeup I still wasn't enough for anyone. People would still suggest acne treatments that I've tried before, and mothers would come up to my mom asking her what had happened to my face, leaving her embarrassed of me, and I of you.