nirvana

It feels wonderful to go to work with excitement and anticipation, and to end the day feeling exhausted but satisfied. Children are such a joy to be around. I have also gotten to know a girl called Amanda --  she's another intern working with Weilin and I :-) So glad that the 3 of us have gotten so close in the past 2 weeks!!! I'll be talking a little about her in this post because her words have been ringing in my head for the whole of today and yesterday. My friend Amanda has an amazing personality. She's so bubbly, positive and she oozes with creativity. She makes videos on youtube, has a beautiful planner filled with stickers that she creates and prints herself, and she has a passion for make up. She cares deeply for her sister, and she adores her friends. Yesterday, the 3 of us shared a laugh over a really hilarious image on twitter with the words "Girls.... don't worry if you can't find Mr Right. Just grab Mr Left and place him on the right". She also chanced upon an advert with really funny/ witty responses for typical questions that teens are bombarded with during CNY reunion dinners. One of the questions was "eh girl ah, now got boyfriend anot??", to which the response they provided was "yup but he left because he couldn't handle my success" (sth like that. it was way funnier i swear!!! I just cant quite remember it word for word.)

So I turned to her and asked "do you usually get such questions?" (I wasn't referring to the boyfriend question - I was talking about all the questions that the advertisers suggested in general). Amanda's response was "nope. It's very obvious why I don't have a boyfriend". I stayed silent for a while. Amanda's a plus sized girl, but I always thought she had plenty of self-confidence because I watched her videos and that was the impression she gave me through whatever she said online/ in real life conversations. 

Her words have stuck in my head till now. It's really sad isn't it? that to some extent, size matters in a relationship. At least that is the perception that many people have even if they don't admit it. I started following really really inspiring plus-sized and body positive youtubers (@learningtobefearless and @loeylane) quite a long time ago last year, and they've really helped in my personal self love journey. But on some days it really does get hard to look at the mirror and think "daaaaaamn, I'm actually pretty", because truth be told I've got rolls on my tummy and broad shoulders and big arms. That's what I see when I look at the mirror on my bad days.

And sometimes I remind myself how I am my harshest critic -- why is it that I can look at women who are curvier, bigger than me and I can think of them as really beautiful, but I cannot seem to do the same for myself?

It's the same in Amanda's case I suppose. When I look at her, I see a girl with a refreshing childlike joy,  contagious laughter, small eyes that reveal secret double eyelids when she rubs them and a girl who appears to have plenty of confidence but in fact, fights her own demons as well.

And apart from Amanda, there is also a boy who has been filling my thoughts.