I have spent the better part of my second decade on this earth focusing all of the hate and hormonal rage I could muster onto the behemoth life-wrecker of puberty. Why my unassuming soft skinned and sweet minded child self had to undergo 5-7 years of hideous horrors just to be able to shop at Victoria’s Secret is beyond me. I had to spend every night of my adolescent life caked in zit cream, praying for a cure to the simple problem of a pimple. You’re sick? Here are some antibiotics to knock that right out! Swallowed poison? No worry, we can pump your stomach. You have a zit? Sorry, but you just have to wait the several years till puberty ends to even dream of having clear skin. But my new bumpy complexion wasn't the only thing thrust upon me in the fabulous process of the female awakening, oh no, there was plenty more where that came from. My innocence was truly robbed when one day my underwear was stained with a bright red streak. I knew from older sisters that this was totally normal, chunks of my vaginal lining were just peeling off from my uterus and coming out of my vagina.So yes, I would have broken my frail child legs and wiggled my small hips into a tiny box so I could have been stowed away, smashed together with all the undesirables sitting in the hot attack while I bided my time nto emerge as a lithe woman.

Sadly, we all know that wishes never come true and middle school is a black hole which we will never regain our dignity from but here we are, we’ve become women by some small miracle. Yet throughout those years of caking makeup on, never looking boys in the eye, and studying the flaws of every part of my changing body, I adopted the notion that I was somehow less. My boobs weren’t as big as my sisters or my friends and they teased me because boys wouldn't like that. The one time a boy told me I looked pretty was at junior prom when I was wearing the most makeup I had ever had. Sure, I was skinny but my hips were protruding from my boyish frame, my shoulders looked like a linebacker, and a boy had never so much as kissed me.

My older sister had had her fair share of boyfriends and whatnot so I went to talk to her. Even though we’d shared the always delightful pimple popping war stories, telling her that I didn’t love myself felt like I was revealing my deepest darkest most embarrassing secret.

“Everyone feels that way at your age,” she said. I didn’t believe her because some of the girls in my grade had already lost their v-cards but I nodded anyway. “You just have to learn to appreciate your body and gain power from it. Us women are way more beautiful than we give ourselves credit for.”

I never really had thought of myself that way- as a strength. Sure, I didn’t look like everybody else but there was something in that. A power I was unfamiliar with began to form within me. My waist was slim and led to a nice curve down my backside. Dark, thick eyelashes brought attention to my slightly oval eyes that revealed what I was feeling if you knew me well enough. I was pretty darn smart too, headed to the best college in my state. I am a woman, dammit! I have the power to give life! I’m a beautiful goddess dripping in gold but I would gladly settle as a demi-god. That is what womanhood has taught me, I am who I am and there’s no changing that. I can only accept that and love myself even if I’m not gorgeous because damn it, I’m pretty freakin’ alright.