Isn't She Lovely: updates vary

i n s e c u r i t y

Love is like the endless equation of pi. Pi begins with the number three before it continues off into a series of other numbers; similarly, the concept of love begins with you. You are the number three and the other numbers are irrelevant until you love yourself. Until you appreciate yourself. Sure, the numbers after three are just as important as any but without three we wouldn’t have the equation of pi, and without you we wouldn’t have love.

Strangely enough, pi is a never-ending number just as love is a never-ending emotion. Love doesn’t die, people do.

There are different types of loves you can experience. Love for family, love for a hobby, love for a friend, love for another, but there is the most important love; love for yourself.

There is a difference in loving yourself and being IN love with yourself. Loving yourself is simply being appreciative of your features and who you are. You know you’re not perfect but that doesn’t make you feel any less lovely. You’re simply happy and content with who you are and what you happen to look like.

Being in love with your-self, however, is a completely different concept. Arrogance, egotistic, cocky; these are the words that define those who are utterly infatuated with the idea of themselves. They believe that others aren’t as wonderful or as lovely as they are. 

That’s how Haven saw it. She needed love; no, she craved it. It was something she had been deprived of from childhood, leading to her spiral down to self-loathing and depression.

Her mother was a perfectionist and being the child of a woman who was so obsessed with the nonexistent belief of perfection she was forced to undergo her mother’s constant ‘beautification process’ as she called it. Haven spent the majority of her life trying to please her mother. From fitness to beauty she was never enough, and then she was thrown into the harsh grasps of puberty. Puberty is supposed to create certain changes throughout your body, some beneficial, others not so much. She was thrown into the latter category.

Her face was the powerhouse for acne and scars, much to her mother’s dismay. Her mother would take any opportunity to point out every flaw and those snide comments and rude remarks were still engraved in her brain and her wrists.

"I wish you were pretty.”

“I can’t believe how ugly you are.”

“Your face makes me want to vomit.”

Staring into her reflection all she could hear was the echoing words of her mother. Even at 22 years old Haven can still feel the insecurity her mother implanted within her.

She wished that the steam from her shower would cover the reflection staring back at her but even that wasn’t enough to block the image she once hated so much.

Squinting Haven saw that her eyes were far too small. Her nose was a bit too big for her face and her cheekbones were far too defined and her face held scars from her adolescence. Her lips pulled downward into that of a frown.

Before she did something she regretted she quickly turned her back to her reflection and quickly got dressed. She hid her face by a curtain of her hair as applying anything other than the medication given to her was not an option.

She stepped out of the confinements of her apartment building into the hustle and bustle of New York City. The cool breeze of autumn and mix of smells hit her like a tornado.

The leaves sprawled out against the streets playing in different colors of greens, yellows, oranges and reds. The whole scene was like a portrait painted but even if it were it wouldn’t match up to the beauty of the scenery live before her. The sounds of screeching tires and the smells of different aromas coming from the many food trucks filled her senses. People shoved past her trying to reach their own destinations. Sometimes she wondered what all the rush was about. Why can’t people just slow down and take a walk through life? But then again she enrolled in the university in this particular city because of her love for the rush. No one would stop to look at her insecurities because they had their own lives to look at and that was something she appreciated.

Keeping her head low, Haven began her walk to college. A car was as insignificant as shaving in the winter in New York. If you wanted to get anywhere then you needed to walk there.

She continued her walk, rushing to get to class on time when she bumped into him. Normally she would have mumbled a small sorry before continuing off on her way but something was pulling her to look into the eyes of this stranger.

She was met with dull forest green eyes and brown hair that was styled perfectly. As if looking into her brown eyes gave him life his own green orbs began to twinkle. People continued passing the two, pushing past them while murmuring rude obscenities about moving, but that didn’t matter to them. They stood staring at each other with a newfound curiosity.

And then he did the most absurd thing. He wrapped his arms around her and whispered lightly in her ear, “You are lovely,” before lightly releasing her and continuing off on his own path.

Watching him walk off with not a care in the world, for the first time in days, months, maybe even years Haven found herself smiling.

© 2014 Tarjani