Growing up as me, Chelsea...

Growing up I was not necessarily popular.
I had red hair. I got picked on for it.
I was super-pasty-white. I got picked on for it.
I was not a stick figure.
I was country
I moved here to NC as a pre-teen and had no life long friends.
I wasn't in the "in crowd"
I didn't care about being the best dressed
My hair was always a crazy, curly, mess.
I didn't feel pretty
I didn't feel worthy
I had self-esteem issues
I didn't love, Chelsea

People were not nice.
Growing up this way created a hard shell.
I built big time walls, like the wall of China.

I was blunt, too blunt
I didn't care what anyone had to say
I didn't know how to take joke.
Being the joke for most of my life, made taking an innocent joke hard.
I lost a lot of friends
I ended friendship before they even started
I didn't take shit

My junior year, of High school, I started to realize that I am, and will always be, Chelsea. This name will follow me around for the rest of my life. That I couldn't change the past but the future was all mine.

I started becoming friends with this girl I had lived my whole life with, myself.
I learned to embrace the person I was
Super-pasty-white, bright red-curly-crazy-big mess-hair, Chelsea.

I wasn't going to "fit in", I was going to be me.
I wasn't going to change me to be something I wasn't.
I started loving, Chelsea and it showed.
The walls came down.
I got new friends
Kept some old friends and got rid of some useless ones.
People started to like, Chelsea
I got hurt, I brushed it off and kept on going

To love your life you have to love yourself. To have true friends you have to be a true person.

You have to love yourself.

What is life if you can't laugh at yourself. Have fun with the person you are with all your flaws. You are you and that's all you can be, naturally.

People are going to hate.
There will always be the one person that calls you, white.
That someone who mentions your weight.
One person you ended a friendship with before it even started.
Those times are only temporary. You are you forever!

So you have curves? Good, I'm sure you look good in jeans.
        

What you have curly hair too? Oh-emm-gee love your curls everyone else does!

You're only tan when compared to a sheet of paper or Elmer's glue?
Well I guess you and I wont have to worry about looking like a wrinkled up, leather couch.

 

I'm sure most of you have seen this on national news. This man was a semi-truck driver for many years. The side of his face that was protected vs. the side that took the suns beating.

 

Embrace yourself, love yourself. You are you!