Women VS Women

It used to be impossible for me to be friends with beautiful, talented women. I was insecure and every female that I met that seemed at all like someone who could be "competition" for me, wasn't my friend.

I rated my value by the number of men that wanted my phone number or told me that I was hot or sexy that day. Disrespect? What's disrespect when someone is telling me that I'm attractive, right? I was a hurting rebel without a cause.

I mean, of course, mom and dad would always tell me that I was their baby girl...the most beautiful girls in the world, my sister and I. But to me it wasn't enough, I needed the superficial validation that came from the strangers that only knew me by what their eyes could take in.

I didn't understand why I would cry myself to sleep sometimes. Why wasn't this enough? This life that I surrounded myself with, these people that pretended to be my friends, but when I wasn't around they talked about me, the way they would talk about others with me. Friends? More like frenemies. I attracted people who were just like me, hurt people who sought out to make others feel their pain.

I remember my best friend and I, thankfully one of my only friends that was really a thoughtful and true friend, would get honked at and we would count it as a medal of honor. Someone degrading us and lowering us to little girls who's worth was equal to a honk, we thought it was everything.

But then, things changed. It didn't happen over night. But their was a point where I noticed that I had more female friends and I was able to acknowledge another woman's beauty instead of comparing them to myself.

I think it was when I started building and nurturing my faith and my relationship with God that I started to see and acknowledge my self worth. By immersing myself in him and seeking to know him more, it's in him that I was able to see the talent and beauty in myself and learn to appreciate and love it in others.

I ended up going to an all women's college and we were taught how to encourage and empower each other. We were taught to be rated by our resumes and our knowledge instead of our bodies. We were taught to raise our hands when questions were asked and to share our opinions no matter who was in the room.

Then I traveled abroad for six months and I met people that told me I was beautiful everyday and I believed them. I was able to watch other women singing songs I wanted to sing and dancing numbers I wanted to dance and feeling genuinely proud of them instead of feeling sad for myself.

Sometimes I feel the old jealousy revving up inside of me, the gossip pushing at the back of my lips, but then I realize that saying something bad about someone else does nothing for my life. Spreading gossip and emitting hate towards others in no way improves my life or builds me up as a person. In my life right now I'm surrounded by the type of people that I want to be around and I've learned that the wrong type of people are eventually weeded out.

Positivity, that's what I want to surround myself with and in order to do so I have to assure that I'm a positive person. Okay, that's all from me for tonight.

Xoxox Nik.