It's all Relative

My image resembles that of an overcooked muffin--brunt on the surface from too much heat and bulging at the sides from too much filling. I pinch the offending fat but pull back quickly from the sting of the raw sunburn. My hair is stringy from the salt water and my freckles threaten to eat my face alive. I’m thirty pounds over what anyone would consider a beach bunny but I’m not exactly a beached whale. I’m really not all that horrible I concede. I’m not talking about picking on myself for picking out a bikini that shows all my fat for the fifth year in a row. I’m referring to my self-esteem.
I know I could be so much worse, I remind myself trying to hide my emerging double chin. I could be like my long-time friend Cat. Her hair always has to be perfectly straight, careful to show off her artificial blond highlights. She spends hours picking out what she will wear everyday but no one should ever find that out. She obsessively concentrates on being one hundred and five pounds or less if she can help it. Or I could be like my best friend Susie, whose collar bone protrudes in every picture taken during our freshmen year in high school. Sometimes she still wears so much make-up she looks like a frosted cupcake. Or I could be like my elementary school friend Danielle who hasn’t had a positive self-image since she was twelve years old. Sucking in your stomach is one thing, being in and out of treatment for anorexia for seven years is something entirely different. But what girl nowadays hasn’t lost years of her life to battling poor self-image. I suppose it’s all relative.