Predicaments of a Fashion Lover: I Believe I am Enough

Waking up in the morning and thinking you rock. Cleaning your flat in your underwear. Being able to dance in clubs however you want, cringey 70’s moves or doing your best Beyonce Crazy In Love body shake, rather than tentatively dancing side to side feeling empty. Looking at yourself in the mirror and smiling, doing your makeup the way you want, because the lipgloss and hoop look is back and better than ever.

Self-love is so fantastic, so brilliant, so MAGICAL. It’s incredibly liberating because when you have self-love you feel comfortable to say how you feel, speak up when things matter to you. It’s having the guts to say ‘HEY I’m brilliant and I love myself’. It’s revolutionary.

It’s being comfortable in your skin, testing boundaries, cracking jokes and taking jokes concerning you. It’s going home at night and feeling something close to happiness, not every night is it happiness but there’s this settled feeling in your chest, behind your lungs. I’m a girl who swore off settling for anything ever since she woke up one morning with an itch under her skin aged 16. So feeling settled is foreign to me, as foreign as another language or Chinese food not coming from cartons. But this settled feeling, god I take it. I’ll take every last drop.

Self-love is treating yourself with the same respect you would a friend.

It’s caring for yourself; mind, body and soul. Self-love is not just buying cute ‘treat yo self’ things, but also taking a look at yourself, knowing what you need to improve. It’s knowing you’re worth something, knowing you’re allowed to love yourself, even if in this moment you don’t feel comfortable in yourself. It’s leaving time to read books, but it’s also getting out of bed and showering, even if you stay at home.

There’s a billion dollar industry made purely from hating ourselves.

Self-love is tied to self-care. It isn’t all joyful moments swinging shopping bags with VSCO filters as you laugh in slow mo.

When I think of self-love, I think about trying on dresses in changing rooms or putting a dress on in my flat and not being able to do the top button. It’s the struggle to fruitlessly bend your arms in various directions, huffing and sweating by the end. It’s the defeat of feeling useless, because by god if I cant do up a measly button, what can I do? It’s the panic of worrying you will rip the dress, or worse, have to call for an assistant to help you and feel their judgement over a flimsy button. That’s how I think of self-love because small actions of self-love, like wearing clothes you want but feeling self-conscious on the street, they lead to this panic. Or worrying over issues and not finding an answer soon, is like the dread of ripping a dress. The battle to do up this small, stupid button who Satan himself created, is the battle of self-love. It’s trial and error, restarting over after low moments, and then over again. It’s something between you and yourself.

Self-love is successfully doing up that top button and giving yourself a cheer. It’s that cheer every morning or every afternoon. If you don’t cheer for yourself, if you don’t celebrate the small moments then you’re forgetting how much you achieve. And because you’re cheering for yourself, this means those cheers don’t have to matter or be considered incredibly important by anyone else. It’s you and you alone.

~~Isn’t that terrifying?~~

Isn’t that liberating?

Self-love isn’t something you find in a person; not the sparkly eyed cute boys (or girls, whatever floats your boat), not your family or friends, although they help because they will remind you of things they love about you. Nope. Self-love is isolating yourself. I’ve seen the argument of learning to love yourself before you love another human being, but I think you can love another human before you love yourself. I think it’s easier to do that. But I think being alone has helped me see myself starkly and badly lit, in a way we all need once in our life. You’ve got to dig into yourself, look in every nook and cranny and take in what you see. You read pages of yourself, make corrections. You ache from loneliness until there’s no ache, you can’t remember such a thing but contentment. You polish every spot until you can see yourself smiling back. You heal.

I went to a University Ball recently, in a dress I found last minute and felt uncomfortable in. Ball dresses weren’t exactly easy to come by in the shops right now, and I couldn’t order one on the day for the day. So I wore this dress, feeling self conscious of my back and the amount of fat on my body. I felt self conscious of my boobs, the sheerness of the dress meaning the ‘underwear’ bottom part of the dress was visible. Which meant my ass was visible. You can see how this could go on. But instead of feeling dread the whole night, I just thought ‘fuck it’. I thought of my body and everything it’s gone through. I thought of the rich Fat Cats of the makeup industry and the fashion world making bucks out of my dwindling self esteem. I thought of 12 year old me feeling lonely reading books in the library, or 16 year old me clutching shitty beer at house parties. I thought about each time I stepped on a scale so young and I decided I have had enough. Plain and simple. I’ve had enough.

I’ve had enough of how much Kardashian crap I see on my Instagram Explore feed, when I follow only one freaking Jenner. I’ve had enough of Topshop’s insane sizing, because if I’m a 10 in one skirt I should be the same in another. I’ve had enough of adverts telling me to buy this or change that, magazine’s reminding of Summer Bodies when I’m not going anywhere exotic so pray tell why I must drop so much weight? I’ve had enough of holding this stupid feeling of not being enough, because frankly I’m enough for myself and I think that’s the only thing that counts. I’ve had enough of being put down in the media and various industries because I’m a woman, I’ve been since I was 13 and I think 7 years is enough time for this crap to have crowded up my life.

I’ve had enough of feeling I shouldn’t love myself, but let others love me. I think I’m the bomb, I’ve thought that for over a year now and yet I still feel nervous to say this. To even type this.

So it’s a Monday and I’ve had enough. It’s a Monday and I’m sitting in leggings and a jumper feeling so much more than enough. It’s Monday and I spent the majority of yesterday in my underwear and a top, not feeling on top of the world but settled.

It’s Monday and I think you’re worthy. You may not think so, and you aren’t worthy just because I say you are. I simply acknowledge you are. Like the way I acknowledge the sun is bright. It simply is, as you are.

I Believe I am Enough

Self-love. God I love self-love. Forget romantic love, friend love, family love or shoe love. Self-love is where I’m at.

Self-love is treating yourself with the same respect you would a friend.

There’s a billion dollar industry made purely from hating ourselves.

Self-love is tied to self-care. It isn’t all joyful moments swinging shopping bags with VSCO filters as you laugh in slow mo.

Isn’t that liberating?