I saw this being spread around on Facebook with captions about how good it is to be “real” and how great a campaign this is. 

I feel like neither of these are ‘real’ to be honest. My body type isn’t really represented in either image and both images are still only promoting one specific body type, not a spectrum. I get the idea, but I don’t think it’s all that helpful. It’s still perpetuating the ideal that one body type is better than another. I’d prefer a campaign with a wide range of different bodies, different women proud of who they are and what they look like.

I don’t understand the concept that in order to appreciate one body type, you have to bash another. There is nothing wrong with either body type displayed as long as they are happy and healthy. I’m sick of this one or the other thing. It’s insulting either way. I’m not skinny or fit like the Victoria’s Secret models, but I’m not curvy like the Dove ones. Does that mean I’m not a “real” woman? Saying one is more “real” than the other isn’t fair. Both are very real. Just different. And all body types should be represented, appreciated and celebrated.

Victoria’s Secret should not be running a “love your body” style campaign when they are very clearly only promoting one body to love. However, I still don’t like the “real beauty” campaign either because I’m not that body type and I want to feel like I’m just as “real” and “beautiful” as those women, who are gorgeous and curvy and lovely.

All I’m saying is that both bodies and all the one’s in between like my own, like yours, like all my friends, should also be represented if we’re trying to promote a “love your body”/”real beauty” thing. There are more than these two body types to love and all of them are real and beautiful. Just my thoughts.

Spiders.

Blood test tomorrow. And a bunch of other things to deal with in the next couple days. Causing me to not sleep when I am laying in bed trying to sleep. Yeah. This happens so friggin often. Night time is the worst. When it’s quiet and dark and the skype conversations are over, all the little worries you’ve been pushing aside all day come scurrying to the forefront of your mind, like tiny, terrifying spiders. and god knows I’m afraid of spiders. I don’t know how to get rid of them, I’m too scared and overwhelmed to move. So I lay here, petrified, and try to wish them away. But each little worry seems to grow bigger and bigger, the spiders multiplying and producing baby spiders, additional little worries associated with the bigger worry, that I hadn’t thought to worry about before. Suddenly, they’re crawling all over my mind, my body, and I’m paralyzed. I can’t get out of this on my own. I need someone to help me. So, I turn to the ever listening ear of the Internet. I go on to my blog and post about my feelings as a way to vent and in the hopes that someone, somewhere, reading this will say to themselves “I know how you feel. I’m afraid of spiders, too.”

I have the most unsettling, restless feeling right now.

I want to do something. I can't sit still. But I'm exhausted.

I don't know what I want.

I want to laugh and cry and sing and sleep and dance and talk til I can’t speak a word and stay utterly silent and listen to music and watch shows and read books and sit in the dark doing nothing.

All at once.

I don’t even.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Pretend you're brave,

and do something.

So, I'm wishing for something right now...

Something very small but very important to me,

and I’m not going to share it

because wishes don’t come true if you share them,

but if you could wish for me too

or pray

or whatever it is you do,

that would be lovely.

Because I kind of really need this.

Want this?

No, need this.

Just, if you have a wish or two to spare,

maybe wish for my wish to come true?

St. Valentine

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day. Even though it's a silly holiday that makes half the population feel lonely and rejected and makes the other half resentful for having to spend so much money on crappy heart shaped candies with stupid phrases written on them, you should all smile today because somebody loves you. It may not be romantic love (yet?) but take today to appreciate and love yourself and those around you. Have a good one ♥