Alive List

Dear Stranger,

I am writing to you today to inform you of the fact that I am considered overweight for my age. I weigh 161 pound. My leg hair grows too fast. I use tinted moisturizer regularly because my skin is a horrible shade of pink which does not tan. If I don't brush my teeth twice a day, my breath will smell horrible. I bite my nails when I get nervous. I have pimples on my back. I have a scar which stretches across the lower right hand side of my stomach from having my appendix removed when I was four years old. I have never known what it is like to have a nice figure. My hair frizzes in the rain. My hands are tiny. My face is too round. My feet smell if I don't wear socks. I always spend my money on the wrong things. I have a birthmark on the back of my neck. I don't like the taste of lamb. I fall in love with someone new every day. I hate it when people step on snails for fun. I feel like my family would be happier without me here. My lips dry up too quickly. I write a lot and always have a little bit of ink on the finger beside my pinky. When bad things happen to me, I don't think about them and pretend like they never happened. I don't have many girly clothes. I act like I don't care what people think, but I really do. I don't have the confidence to leave my house without wearing makeup. I get really bad hay fever. I always forget to make my bed. I rarely bring a library book back on time. I don't like writing in blue ink. Pastel colours look silly on me. I have a ring that belonged to my Nana that I wear every single day.

I am alive and so are you.

This isn't a letter to address all of my flaws. It's proof that I'm alive. That I have something to be thankful for because I'm human and because I eat and sleep and excrete and convert oxygen into carbon dioxide and feed my dog and buy goods and laugh and cry and love and hate and read and fall over.

I am alive. And so are you.

Now it's your turn.- Make a list. Not of pros or cons or reasons why you love yourself or hate yourself or anybody else. Just pure, solid evidence that you are alive. Breathing. You can put it somewhere public, hide it, give it to a friend, keep it for yourself. Whatever you like. It's your list and your life. You'real. WORTHWHILE.

Love life and love yourself.
You deserve it.

~R.E.B.C.