Accept it.

I'm not gay. Or differently sexual, nor do I have any links to the rainbow community. I am a perfectly 'normal' seventeen year old heterosexual girl and I don't have any regrets about that. I didn't have trouble 'fitting in' for who I was nor did I have to struggle with 'finding myself'. And while we're talking about it, what exactly is 'accepting yourself'?

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How does it work? Do you simply wake up one day and realize that maybe I'm not myself yet, or do you look in the mirror and see someone you're not? Or do you just smile at the person and move on? And what do you do if no one else sees what you see. I may not have a great, dramatic story about finding myself and accepting who I am, because let's be honest, I don't know who I am yet. I don't know who I will be tomorrow, let alone in another three years.

I've been happy, angry, terrified, lonely and loved. I've been the loud kid that messes around at parties and pranks the adults, I've been the angsty teenager questioning everything and hating everyone, I've been terrified and lonely in my own head and I've hated myself too. I've been the class monitor on the first bench eager to shine the brightest but I've also been the girl in the last bench who tried her hardest to stay invisible, lest someone see how scared she was. The question remains, which am I? Who am I?

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see a sack of skin, not my own, just an empty shell carrying around a mind that can't shut up. Those times I see only the stretch marks, the extra fat, the imperfections and I'll try and hold my breath in for as long as possible, hoping to hold my belly in too. Don't get me wrong,there's nothing wrong with me, health- wise. But I'm not myself. My mind and body feel like they belong to two different people that I'm desperately trying to hold together.

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Other times, when I catch myself looking in the mirror, maybe trying on that new dress, I see a confident, pretty girl who can easily slay in any outfit. The stretch marks then are battle scars, and the belly is cute. Then I'll maybe take a spin or do a little dance, just out of happiness and comfort. And in those times, I feel completely at peace with who I am. I don't know who that is, but whoever it is, I like her. And thus the cycle goes on.

Coming back to acceptance, I don't think its a split second thing. People take a long while to accept themselves, and whether it is appreciated or not, sometimes it takes a lifetime. But it's worth it. There are many stages to accepting ourselves, and for every single person on this planet, those steps differ.

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For some the first steps involve changing their bodies, their genders, their sexual orientations. For some it involves engaging in work they love and being accepted by their communities, and for some its about understanding who they are and who they want to be in the first place.

I don't know who I am yet, so I haven't accepted myself. I still don't necessarily like my body, or my mind, I'm not comfortable with myself just yet, I don't know who I am, but I can start by figuring out who I want to be. Acceptance is the final step on a very long ,sometimes infinitely so, staircase. And I believe everyone really trying to climb that staircase deserves appreciation, whoever they are, wherever they are. Teenagers aren't the only ones trying to "find themselves" , adults are not necessarily comfortable with who they are or the choices they have made, and there is no age or time or criterion to acceptance. They deserve appreciation for trying to do something for themselves, for trying to better who they are, for trying to fit in with their own ideas even if that means going against everyone they know. Because there are many, like me, that are too scared to even start.

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