You Don't Need To Be Perfect To Be Beautiful

You Don't Need To Be Perfect To Be Beautiful

I have learned that I can be imperfect according to society, and still be a MASTERPIECE to the greatest artist of all time..God.

Walking through the malls as a young girl, all I saw was perfect. Perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect thigh gaps, perfect skin, and perfect bodies. I didn’t see any imperfection, because the fashion industry had airbrushed all that was imperfect into perfection. As a little girl, I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand that the images I saw in the store windows at the mall, were imperfect images that were photo shopped to look perfect. Now as a plus size model several years later I understand.

“Your hair is too long, your breasts are not big enough, your hips are too big, I’m going have to photoshop the bags underneath your eyes”, are some of the things I have heard over the last few years as a model. Things about myself, that people see as imperfect, and things that they have sought to make perfect. I’m not going to lie, as a model I have struggled to be perfect enough to those around me. Perfect enough for my agents, perfect enough for clients, perfect enough for photographers, and other models. No matter what I do, my pictures aren’t good enough, my hair is never at the perfect length, my body is never the right size, and the bags under my eyes can never be covered up with enough makeup. This constant cycle of trying to be good enough for the fashion world, has brought me to my knees several times. “When will I be good enough for anybody?” is what I have screamed to the world around me many times. 

So many times I have wanted to walk away, so many times I have wanted to rip up all my pictures, so many times I have wanted to walk away from my contracts. But when I go to the mall now at the age of 24 and see the small girls looking at the pictures on the wall and comparing themselves to what seems like a perfect image. I am reminded of why I do what I do. I am reminded of all the little girls I was in treatment with in high school for my eating disorder. I am reminded of why I live to unveil the perfect images, to reveal the imperfection that lies beneath. To show the world that perfection is not reality, it is an illusion painted by the fashion world to sell a product.

 I’m not going to lie, at the age of 24 I don’t have what society says is the perfect body. I don’t have the perfect hair, flawless skin, in fact I don’t have a thigh gap at all, or the perfect nails. I am imperfect in every way according to society, yet I am beautiful in every way according to my creator Jesus Christ. I have learned that I can be imperfect according to society, and still be a masterpiece to the greatest artist of all time..God.

If I were to place myself in front of the beauty critics of the world, I would get a 1/10 on their beauty scale according to their standards. But if I were to be put in front of the one who created beauty, The Creator, then I would get a 10/10. The truth is, to society we will all fall short of their beauty standards, no one will ever get a 10/10 no matter how much they try. An even greater truth, is that from the beginning of time…we were always a 10/10 in HIS eyes. Remember everyone..Imperfection Is Beauty.