I was a really dorky looking kid. Big glasses, braces for years and years, really pale.
Even after I got older and grew into my features, I was still harboring the years of being teased, or at the very least the feelings of unattractiveness.
Secretly, I always love kids with glasses. I wear contacts now because I'm such an active person, but I hate it when people are insensitive about people who do wear glasses because they simply have no choice.
I digress. The summer before 10th grade, I decided, "Okay. I have no choice. I look the way I do, there's no changing it." And, most remarkably, I somehow convinced myself to deal with it.
Slowly but surely, I've assured myself that it's okay to look the way I do. I've come to appreciate my flaws, and I think when I look in the mirror, I see who everyone else does, and I'm totally okay with who I am....at least on the outside.
It was a slow process, from going through the motions enough that the habit of reassuring myself that I was not ugly became the way I really do feeling about myself. After I accepted the way I looked physically, it was a lot easier to come to terms with the me inside, and I like the person I am too.
Especially women are held to such high standards. To be a female teenager is to be expected to be perfection. Screw society, I like who I am.