When I was six years old, I liked to pretend. My imagination was wild.

And one day, I pretended to be a puppy. Why? Because why not?

And like any puppy would do, I was playing tug-of-war with a toy in my mouth, and my friend held the other end.

At that moment, I felt pure bliss. Pure Satisfaction. Pure content.

And the moment after that, it was yanked away from me, along with my tooth.

But little did I know, because of that yank, my teeth would one day grow in crooked and jagged.

And it wasn't until after that moment, at age six,  that I felt ugly.

And ugly hearts daggard at me with uly words and ugly names.

"Snaggle tooth, vampire teeth, crooked mouth."

I've heard them all.

Insecutiry ruled my life.

At age eight, I got glasses.

"Four-eyes, nerd, geek."

I was labed, simply because I couldn't see. Those ugly names with ugly motives really got to me.

By age eleven, I was chubby.

"Fat, four-eyed, snaggled-ttoth."

Insecurity was ruling my life.

Ugly words from ugly hearts with ugly motives were getting the best of me.

I can honestly say that I don't recall a time at those ages where I ever felt "pretty."

And you see that was the thing to be. If you were going to be anything, you had to be pretty. Pretty smile, pretty eyes, pretty slim. Something I felt was pretty unattainable.

But by age thirteen, I got contact lenses, and I joined the track team and slimmed down. Freshman year I got braces.

So there I was. Pretty smile, pretty eyes, pretty slim. But insecurity was still ruling my life.

And it wasn't until then that I realized that being pretty is not something that could not simply be fixed.

Beauty is something I was born with. It's something I've always owned.

Yet i constantly found more and more reasons to find more and more things to fix the way I look.

"My skin isn't soft, my legs are fat, meeth are yellow."

But who is too say that they are?

What if, by chance, I'm suppose to look this way?

That awkward birth mark on my back, my size 28 waist, my round face?

Who is to say that those aren't pretty?

But I no longer let insecurity rule my life and keep me from seeing beauty because beauty is in everything. And it's something I've always owned.

Being different, being myself, loving who I am are beautiful things.

Beauty is defined by my own definition. My own corkiness, my mannerisms, my character.

No one knows my defintion of beauty better than myself; I am the one who writes it.

So who is to say that I'm not beautiful?