Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a different kind of animal, maybe an orangutan, still so human like, still needing of connection with one another but with a lot less vanity or baggage involved.
 

But with the species we are, we’re so innately programmed to obsess over these vessels we’re in, that simply hold everything together, we pick ourselves (and horribly sometimes others) apart over cellulite, hip dips, our noses that give us the privilege to have the sensation of smell, and even the organs we use to feed our own children.
 

Why do we do this? No really, why?!

I remember when I was just a little girl I would often sit on my mother’s bed as she got ready to go out with friends. I think my mother is absolutely beautiful, and I always have. Like most daughters do, I looked up to her, this strong independent woman raising me, my tiny feet stomping around in her grown up high heels which were far too big for me, red lipstick smeared on my face in same style of the drawings I’d so proudly pinned to the fridge.

I watched my mother do as many women before her had done and stare at herself in the mirror, trying multiple outfits on and declaring herself ‘too big’, ‘too frumpy’, ‘too pale’, or ‘too tired looking’, too woman. By no means is this her fault. Sound familiar?

Generally I’ve always had a reasonably healthy relationship with myself, but I remember being around 12 years old and being told by a friend’s parent I was stick thin. I remember thinking to myself ‘why would I want to be stick thin?’ and ‘why do you care?’ I didn’t know what projection meant at that age. I also remember being a growing 15 year old, hungry all of the time and feeling guilty every time I opened the fridge, doing it quietly so no one would hear and I wouldn’t have to face judgement.

When I was 17, in college, I downloaded a weight loss app to track my calories, limiting myself strictly- which lasted a few days, until a friend took me to McDonald’s and I shamefully indulged in a large 9 chicken nugget meal, feeling like that lonesome little mouse eating chocolate, you know the video I’m talking about.

It’s drilled into us. Generationally, you can’t pin it to be anybody’s fault, but this self bashing that we do bleeds into everything. Social media posts about how to get the ‘perfect body’, a digital world plastered with things like BBLs, glorification of situationships, empty trends and what do we do? constantly consume it, letting it become a focus in our world. I’m guilty of it.

I think that those of us in this generation are doing a better job in general. I think social media makes it harder to not compare your life to others, however, I also think that it can be brilliant when it’s content that you genuinely enjoy and in smaller doses, something that adds to your joy, doesn’t take it away.

 I think our 20s is a weird time because everybody can be in such different places, but that’s okay. Shouldn’t the main ingredient of success in life be peace? I think though sometimes performative, we do generally accept ourselves and others more now than we have done for many years and I also think that we ‘love’ more easily these days.

I’m not saying it’s not important to look after ourselves, better our beings in order to feel better, I do believe that having a healthy body matters, but I want to look in the mirror less, I want to spend more time looking into other peoples eyes than my own, I want to spend more time on my feet and less time watching others on theirs through a screen.

I think we need to learn to love ourselves like a friend and remember that we aren’t meant to look at ourselves- we are feeling the experiences of life through ourselves, everything we touch is an extension of ourselves. I don’t think I’ll ever do this perfectly, but I do think I’ll try. try to be more orangutan. If we can pull ourselves apart, we can certainly try to put ourselves back together.
 

Maybe next time somebody pays you a compliment, fight the urge to disagree, instead smile and say thank you- I think that’s a great place for us to start.

S***, I'm a grown-up.
 

Ellena x