Oh, my darling.

The world has hurt you again, hasn’t it?

When I saw you today, the twinkle in your eyes was a little dimmer, the sparkle in your smile a little more forced, the sound of your laughter practically nonexistent.

And the sight of you almost brought me to tears.

Because it frightened me to know there was something so cruel, so dark, so evil in this world that could dull the shine of such a beautiful angel.

I wanted to take you in my arms, hold you tight, and make you feel warm. Safe. Loved.

But I can’t because you barely even know I exist, so I will try to give you some sense of solace within the confines of my poor attempts at prose.

You see, I overheard you confiding in your friend as I passed by you.

It was completely by accident and I didn’t mean to hear what you said but my ears betrayed my trust and tuned into your conversation because they couldn’t help but desire to hear the soft, sweet melody of your voice.

You told your friend, “God, I hate being so ordinary.”

Not, I hate feeling so ordinary.

No, you hate being so ordinary.

As if being ordinary was inherent in your very essence, your very heart, your very soul.

Who told you that you were ordinary?

Who told you such an abominable lie?

Because whoever told you that is a liar.

You hear me? A liar.

Because if they had seen your radiant, sunshine smile, if they had heard your incandescent laughter — reminiscent of a bird’s song at Dawn — if they had truly known you as the miracle you are, then they wouldn’t have dared make you feel as if you were simply ordinary, regular, run of the mill.

I wonder, what did they have to say to make someone as intelligent, kind, funny, and beautiful as you feel average. Less than enough. Less than worthy. Less than the God-given miracle you are.

Did they tell you that you weren’t skinny enough? Did they tell you that no one would love your stomach rolls, the extra fat around your waist and thighs, the “chipmunk cheeks” on your face? Did they tell you that you weren’t pretty enough and you would never be pretty enough because you’ll never live up to Eurocentric beauty standards and you’ll just have to accept the fact that because you’re not European, you’re not deemed “conventionally pretty” enough to have any sort of good quality representation in the media?

No, I’m sorry, I’m getting us confused.

You see, that’s what they told me.

And I believed them.

I believed them so wholeheartedly that I became incapable of taking a compliment.

Don’t believe me? Well, let me put this this way then.

I take my compliments like I take my coffee.

I don’t like coffee.

No, that’s an understatement, I despise coffee.

But please don’t misunderstand me. It’s not the compliments I despise; it’s my mind’s insistence that the compliments just aren’t true.

Whenever someone tries to say something nice to me, I immediately think they’re lying because there’s always someone smarter than me, funnier than me, and prettier than me, right?

I mean, scrolling through social media is enough proof to me that I’m neither smart nor funny nor pretty.

None of that “their beauty’s not my lack,” no that’s all thrown out the window because when my battered self-confidence sees someone who’s pretty, that automatically means I’m not pretty. Right?

Right?

Well, I say that’s wrong.

I say that’s a lie.

And I’m not going to allow another fraud, another scam, another myth make me feel less than the beautiful daughter of God I am.

Why? Because a) it’s time consuming, b) it’s mentally and emotionally exhausting, and c) don’t I deserve better than that? Don’t you deserve better than that? Don’t we as a society deserve better than that?

Because I deserve to see pools of milk chocolate that you drizzle over strawberries and bananas in my eyes and the tilled earth after a slight drizzle in my hair.

You deserve to see endless forests and jungles filled to the brim with lush greenery in your eyes, eyes the color of the earth coming back to life after an unforgiving winter, eyes that attest to the beauty of spring, eyes that prove to me that spring is by far better than winter, summer, and fall all combined. You deserve to see your hair as a majestic horse’s mane threaded through with pure gold and sunlight captured from the rays of Dawn herself.

We all deserve to see the stars dancing in our eyes, the crescent moons hiding behind our smiles, and traces of stardust from a billion years ago running through our veins, the very stardust that makes up Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of the Earth.

We deserve to look at ourselves, think about ourselves, and treat ourselves with the love and respect that is our God-given right as His children.

I mean, He made us out of the same stuff the stars are made of, for crying out loud.

And you still think of yourself as ordinary, regular, run of the mill?

Darling, you are anything but ordinary.