‘Self Love’ by Jaqueline Carrillo

This piece was part of the Ánimo Voices Competition, which invited students to write about innovators, upstanders, visionaries, or rebels that have made a difference in their local or broader communities. The competition was an opportunity to motivate, recognize, and celebrate our strong student voices through writing and art.

Self Love

by Jaqueline Carrillo, 10th grade, Ánimo Ralph Bunche Charter High School

As a 15 year old young female living in a prejudiced and judgemental world, you wouldn’t expect me to know anything about how to love myself. Perhaps I didn’t in the past , but I do now.

I had just turned nine years old. I was wearing a bright pink dress that I loved. All my family was there and what made me the happiest was seeing that my parents seemed to be getting along even though they had just gotten a divorce. We were celebrating my birthday. Balloons everywhere, pizza, chinese food, my birthday cake, and all my presents. To me it was everything that a kid could want. My mom pulled me aside and grabbed both of my hands gently for a while and said, “Today on your birthday, you look more beautiful than ever. You’re growing up to be an amazing person please don’t ever think less of yourself.” I thought it was very sweet of her but what intrigued me was that she said it with such a worrying voice. She said it like if she knew something was going to happen. I didn’t bother to ask because all I wanted to do was go out and open my presents.

It was like a pattern after that birthday. Now that I’m growing up into a young adolescent, she takes me aside on every birthday of mine to tell me how important it is to appreciate myself and to love everything about me from the inside and out. I noticed that as I grew older she said it with a more worried voice. Almost as if she was happy yet worried of me growing up. Never really understood why she eagerly wanted me to know the importance of loving myself. I really appreciated it more each year because her words were just so kind and soothing, but I wish she would’ve taken her own words and her own advice a couple of years ago too.

See, two years before turning nine, my parents got a divorce. It was a very devastating moment for my mom. I would see her crying daily and looking very drained emotionally and physically . She started wearing baggy clothing and just looking lousy which caused her to blame herself for the divorce because she would say she wasn’t “enough of a woman”. She thought she wasn’t worthy of being loved and cared for because of her looks. As such a young age I didn’t know what “being enough” or “being unworthy” of something meant, but I could tell it was something that a lot of people wanted to perfect in a way.

Through the years of surpassing the negative things that my mom went through, she taught me that self love isn’t all about the acceptance of how you look, but also accepting your true colors.She once told me that the beautiful thing about self love is that day by day you can wear it inside of you like a gorgeous elegant piece of clothing and overtime it becomes more exquisite. I always wondered how she was able to actually believe in this considering she once felt unfit to ever be loved and cared for. I once asked her why she really wanted me to love myself and she softly replied with a smile , “At some point, we all feel like we need someone to fill in the things we think we lack, but we don’t because we’re enough.” That really stuck with me because it made more sense. She did not want me to suffer she just wanted me to know that i’m more than enough and that I have nothing to prove to anyone.

Self love required her to be very courageous. She had to feel empowered over herself in a world that desperately tries to make people different. Never will she compromise to be someone who’s she’s not because now she knows her worth.

I will always look up to my mom because she taught me that self love doesn’t just come out of nowhere. You have to be at your lowest most vulnerable point to understand that you’re more than enough to overcome anything if you just start by appreciating yourself .To love yourself is not just a self-esteem boosting piece of advice. It is the prerequisite to truly loving others. Start by looking at yourself in the mirror everyday, and tell yourself that you’re amazing from the inside and out. I promise you will smile.