I love the life I was given. I've had so many experiences that have shaped me and changed me so drastically. I look at life differently almost daily. I over-think almost every situation that I'm in because life has proven to be anything but vague. I'm a complex mess that thinks she can speak out and maybe help at least one person feel normal in their struggles to navigate life successfully. My definition of navigating life successfully would require another blog post in itself but all in all - being happy within struggle. Each day produces new and complex situations in our lives. Today, I'm digging into my deep rooted subconscious struggle with.......spray tans. If you don't think spray tans can be a deep rooted issue in your life ...you probably have never gone to bed sobbing because of people picking on your fair skinned appearance. I'm 24 years old and the jokes still get to my soul. I'm here to figure out why. Why does being pale bring me down so deeply? Why does it matter to me? These are realizations I came to at 4 am - as I scrubbed the orange glow from my skin / cried to motion city soundtrack while feeling empowered in my romantic comedy like situation with my skin color and self worth. I realized last night at 4 am while I struggled to get comfortable in bed due to sticky orange skin that I really HATE spray tans. I spray tan almost weekly and it's never more pleasurable. "Why do I keep doing this?" I ask myself. I then realized, I'm not even doing this for me. I'm doing this for the attention that follows. I'm doing this because of the male attention that I get once that skin dye is applied. I swear dudes have a 6th sense for when I'm spray tanning. My phone instantly lights up more often. Here's the deal though....I have no problem personally with my pale skin. I don't feel less attractive. I wouldn't notice how pale I am if my foundation wasn't named "snow" and dudes didn't make jokes about not needing a flash light around me. (PSA thats a bad joke and your cell phone has a flash light and I bet your dick is small) So, why am I doing it? Im spray tanning to avoid that awful joke for one, but also because sometimes since I am human. Sometimes, I base my self worth on what you assholes think of me. UGH. I hate not being super human and falling into the trap society set for me that my worth is correlated to what kind of arm candy look I'm serving that day. I'm spray tanning so some asshole will walk by me and think I'm beautiful. WTF AVERY. I'm still strong minded, creative, intelligent, caring, brave, unapologetic, independent thinking, and my soul is still pure regardless of what shade of orange my skin is that day. I'm still worth more than most the dude's I'm begging for compliments from deserve. Any dude who makes you feel like you need to accommodate him to receive compliments doesn't deserve your 2 pm wanna eat corn dogs with me text, anyways. I'm all about doing things that make YOU feel good, but make sure you're not subconsciously basing feeling good off others opinions of you. Realize you rock, and maybe don't do those things you've been doing to trick yourself into thinking that until you can say it with purity in your heart. I love you guys and I hate assholes that make you question your self worth. Cheers, babes.
