Winter Break Slump

Life has been so boring recently it’s not even funny but I’m going to try my best to make it funny. Nothing is happening. My friends are normal. My boyfriend is kind of normal. My family is as normal as they can get. My dog is sitting in the same spot she always sits in. And I watch Gossip Girl everyday where Serena is an over privileged balloon head and Blair is scheming over something stupid. As. Per. Usual. Because my life has been so boring, I’ve been searching for ways to make it more interesting. This includes wanting to redecorate my entire room. I filled my entire Amazon cart and Pinterest with options for new bedding, mirrors, and storage before I realized that I’ll be off to college in about 1.5 years (SCARY) so it doesn’t make sense to redo my room right now. With that being said, I decided to scroll on Pinterest some more and look for life inspiration which was a failure because my Pinterest’s algorithm has no clue what my vibe is anymore. Annnnnd that was the end of my ideas to make my life more interesting. Basically what I’m saying is I have no clue what to do with my life now that it’s still. I’m quite used to my life being hectic and unpredictable and it’s weird knowing I went into a new year with my life in a good position. A good kind of weird but still quite weird. 

Side note: Pinterest is my favorite form of social media. No negativity. Just doom scrolling pictures of my dream outfits and future home. My non-verbal Pinterest time is the best part of my day. You can’t convince me otherwise.

I just got home and scrolled on Instagram reels where I saw an edit of Aidan Shaw and Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. When I tell you I almost cried. I’m so miserable watching Gossip Girl because these characters are so insufferable; More insufferable than Carrie when she's chasing after Big for the millionth time. This edit had me going on a rant to my father about how it should’ve been Aidan. HE WAS THE OBVIOUS OPTION. I mean Aidan really cared for Carrie. He was so patient and loving with her even when she didn’t deserve it. So why did I almost cry? I’m 90% sure it was because I'm hormonal but 10% of it was the realization that I have my Aidan Shaw. He’s the best.

Anyway, in my final effort to make life more interesting and try something new I went to pilates for the first time! Which also means I overcame one of my biggest fears: leggings. Some might think this is an irrational fear but in my mind it is completely rational. See, I wore leggings everyday 5 to 11 years old so there came a point when I got sick of wearing leggings. Naturally I boycotted and started solely wearing baggy jeans for years (and still do). I vividly remember my first time wearing leggings after not wearing them for 2 years. I was 13 years old and had gone to Alo with my father to go shopping for athletic wear. One of the sales associates handed me leggings to try on, so I did and since then I’ve had the biggest fear of leggings. Something to note is between the ages of 11 and 13 I gained about 40 pounds. I was never necessarily fat or overweight but I was still really insecure and generally unhappy with the way I looked. The part of my body that changed the most when I gained weight were my thighs so when I put on those leggings and saw the way my thighs had changed since I was 11 I was really embarrassed and told myself I would never wear leggings again. When my friends would ask me what I had against leggings I would simply say I don’t like the tight feeling (which is true) and leave it at that. I remember scrolling on TikTok one day  when I discovered the term “legging legs”, the “perfect leg shape for wearing leggings”. Let's just say that TikTok did NOT help my insecurities. At the age of 14 I lost 30 pounds in, give or take, 2 months :p… nothing about that was healthy. Believe it or not, going from a BMI of 24 to 17 within 2 months really messes with your head. Despite the fact that I weighed as much as the average 10 year old and lost all the weight in my thighs, the fear of leggings continued to linger. I had this notion that if I put leggings on I would revert into 13 year old me standing in front of an Alo mirror on the verge of tears over her thighs. Now I'm 16 and because I agreed to go to pilates, I went to Alo, stood in front of the same scary mirror, and tried on legging sets. All of a sudden, it wasn’t so scary anymore. 

I’ve always held my silence when it comes to insecurities over my body because people never really seem to be understanding. Actually, a lot of people are really mean. I’m skinny now but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve had body image issues since elementary school. I will say this now and I will say it time and time again: body dysmorphia and general body image issues are mental illnesses. Almost none of it has to do with the actual state of one's body. I hope one day people will grow to be nicer because there was no reason I had to suffer through “legging legs” and all the rest of my insecurities by myself because nobody wanted to understand. #staywoke

Best,

Eila