Chapter 46: Finding Sassy Self-love at the Border of Crazy
Hello to the world of Freaks of Nurture! My name is MSP!
Does that name sound familiar? Well, I may have been mentioned in Cherry’s blogs once or twice (yes, that was me being sarcastic. LOL).
You are probably wondering why the heck Cherry’s daughter is writing a blog. Well, my mom said she was writing for February, aka the month of love, so I volunteered to take her place cause I have a lot to say about love.
Love… the heartbreaker or heart mender that we deal with every Valentine’s Day. No matter if you love Valentine’s Day or not, at some point, each of us has prayed to the goddess Aphrodite to command Cupid to shoot some arrows their way.
I don’t know much about romantic love, and there’s another reason love has been on my mind lately. So, I won’t be talking about the love you share with someone else. Today, I’m going to discuss my feelings about self-love.
I have been struggling with self-love lately because my body and mind are going through so many changes. Plus, I’ve been watchful of my weight lately, and loving who I am and what I look like is hard with so many pressures to look and act a certain way.
Let’s get this straight, when I talk about loving myself, I don’t mean that yoga, meditative, goodie-goodie kind of self-love. What I mean is the acceptance of my flaws and the things that make me different. The things that make me “imperfect” are the things I should love the most about myself. It’s easy to write this, but much harder to feel it.
Last week, I sketched the illustration shown above because I was feeling down on myself. School’s been hard in quarantine, and I’m struggling to be motivated. And when people tell me that I must love myself, I tell them that I need to discover this on my own and learn that I am beautiful and bright.
Even though my mom tells me that I should love myself no matter what or who brings me down. I still find it hard because I get caught up in what other people think of me, and I change to fit in. I change my actions, how I speak, what I believe, how I look, and how I think.
When I look in the mirror, I only highlight the bad stuff and never acknowledge the good stuff. On top of all that, social media is draining and makes people really judgemental. Even though my mom doesn’t let me use it, some of my friends have the apps so it’s hard to escape. What I’ve learned is that our society strives for perfection. But I don’t think it can be achieved because even the most perfect rose will someday lose its petals.
Valentine’s Day has been known as a holiday where we celebrate our love for someone else. I’m writing today to challenge that idea. Couldn’t it be a day we honor ourselves and all the things that make us freaky and weird! I’ve come to love the words freak and weird because I’ve come to learn that I’m proud to be both!
I’ve been thinking of many things I can do on Valentine’s Day to show myself some love and affection. I thought I’d share the ideas I came up with to inspire you guys to join me in a celebration of self-love on Valentine’s Day and every day this year:
No 1. Go on a nice nature WALK in the park and just write about your life. You may discover that you get to know yourself better and release all the negative feelings about your life.
No 2. BAKE delicious treats or cook a new recipe. I believe this helps because food tastes good and distracts from negative comments because you will be more focused on not burning your cookies.
No 3. PAINT. I will not tell you what to paint or draw, just do what you feel, and you may find out that you are a good artist. It’s a way to express your feelings and quiet that devil on your shoulder whispering that you are not good enough.
Valentine’s Day can still be fun even if you don’t have a special someone in your life. People forget that you don’t have to celebrate it with someone you can just celebrate by yourself and still have as much fun, maybe even more!
So, I guess what I am saying is there is only a single day in the whole entire year that highlights love, so why not just celebrate the person you should love the most, YOU!
Happy Valentine’s Day, Freaks of Nurture! I hope this one is better than the last!
MSP out!
MSP is an 11-year old middle school student who loves her family, friends, and furry sister, Bella Bear. She is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a burgeoning singer, drummer, and pianist. She has big dreams of becoming a baker and owning her storefront where she can mix savory and sweet flavors.
In her spare time, you can find her painting, hanging with her sister by choice, fellow TDF blogger Liv Mazz, and spending time playing in the park with her new-found school friends. She is an avid fan of Greek Mythology and knows the origin story of nearly every Greek God and Goddess.
Her proud mom is The Daily Feels blogger, The Freak of Nurture, who worships the ground her sassy feet walk on!