Love yourself

Not for someone else’s love or for self-improvement. Just love yourself.

My mother always described herself as fat. And she did so in a self-derogatory manner. I hated it. To me, my mom has always been the pinnacle of beauty. I acknowledge that this is because I love her and she was probably the best mom who ever lived (sorry, all other moms and future me, but you’ve got some big shoes to fill). But mom was always in a fight against her size. And it was a fight she could never ever win. She was a Danish woman, the shortest in her family at 5'11" and had always been muscular and strong. She towered over most men and could never find women’s shoes that fit her in both length and width. She was also curvy with long limbs and she did end up gaining quite a lot of weight.

When I was born I was more or less average and my mom hoped I would be tall like her. But, my father is Hungarian and while medieval Hungarians were known for their height, unlike Scandinavians, Hungarians tend to be incredibly sexually dimorphic. What this means for me is although I inherited my mother’s gorgeous auburn hair I would be relegated to a much shorter stature while my brother got to have all of her height and a bit more.

I’m average height for a woman but if you stand me next to my cousins male and female on my mother’s side I’m a miniature. But…