I'm Counting on Me

The Road to Self Love

Self-love is one way I use to rebuild and strengthen my faith. I can’t have faith in myself if I’m the same person every day. By embracing growth and change, I welcome self-love as a form of self-evolution. By choosing to become a better version of myself I have an easier time finding that perseverance in the self. The natural and constant occurrence of growth only adds to the flourishment of self-love. This growth may be inevitable and slow, but there is no reason to diminish my own growth since it happens in every instant. A process that is so revolutionizing and so important to my life should not be shunned. In fact, it should be uplifted and fueled.

From Horton, I have realized I have only been viewing myself with “one eye.” In order to accept myself and continue growing in a fuller and more positive sense, I have to embrace the idea that “I am not yet all I can be” (Horton 131). I am proud of who and what I am today.

Perceiving Inner Beauty

A stem of self-love blossomed in my life a few weeks ago on a March afternoon, by simply looking in a mirror. Before this instance though, I have always hated seeing myself in the mirror. Quite literally I had been seeing a flipped image of who I am, thereby making it difficult to judge my beauty in its purest form. This beauty is not strictly physical. It is internal and spiritual in nature as well, the two worlds interconnected. While I might not see either form of beauty as I gaze into my reflection, they are present at all times for others to recognize and for us to realize. Nahid Angha writes that “You may not perceive the beauty in dust that nourishes the flower but is there and recognized by the roots of the flower that nourish it and transfer it to the seed of the plant” (21).

Mirror Images

So, as my eyes scanned my reflection looking for my typical imperfection, something about my mirror image seemed different than normal. I had arrived back at my dorm from a trip to downtown San Rafael, having received a proper haircut after about six months of growing my hair out. I prepped to go through my normal post-haircut routine, rinsing my hair in the shower and trying to replicate what the barber had done so artfully in the barbershop when I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Up until this point, I hadn’t really analyzed how I looked with my hair cut short again. As I looked at my shortened sides and smelled the pomade in my freshly cut hair, I smiled. I’ve never been happy with my hair, always saying it’s too long or it’s too short, not enough was cut in the back or too much in the front. This time though, I found myself in love with how I looked. I was actually excited about my new hair and didn’t care if anyone commented on it or not because I knew that I liked it. In this small instance, I found myself loving a part of me I had seldom loved in the past, something that I felt was transformative and renewing. Who knew that one haircut could help me find the chance to love a part of me I’ve always resented.

Little Win-S

S’s transformation over the semester was something I never really kept an eye out for. In my final visit to Coleman this semester, I spent my time with S reading his most challenging book yet. This book was a level five-book about dinosaurs meant for 4th to 5th graders. Nevertheless, S seemed eager to tackle the challenge. As we began reading he struggled with some of the words, but as per usual he overcame the doubts he had in himself that I was so persistent in reminding him throughout the semester to fight. I’d always tell him “You know this word, you got this.” This time having to learn to pronounce "Edmontosauraus," in only two tries, he continued to exceed my expectations. Despite any struggles he may have had with the one page we read, I saw what I had hoped to see in my final visit with S. A kid having fun reading, enjoying the opportunity to push himself and read despite any mistakes he made. A student who was unafraid to pronounce new words. One who at the beginning of the semester had no motivation to finish a page in a book, to one who gladly re-read a page for extra practice and to show how much he had learned.

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