You Are Beyoncé, Here's Why

I've realized that I hate the word beautiful.

I don't like to hate things, and therefore I don't hate things lightly, so hear me out. I'm not referring to the actual adjective's denotation, but it's connotation in modern American society ( as that's the only culture I can speak of from experience ). It's over usage in the popular media, advertisements, and everyday dialogue makes my skin crawl.

"All bodies are beautiful."

"Everyone is beautiful in their own way."

I hate those sentences with a burning passion I have for basically nothing else in the world.

THE POINT OF SOMEONE'S WHOLE EXISTENCE SHOULDN'T BE TO FIT THE
CONSTRUCT (HOWEVER PROGRESSIVE OR RELATIVE) OF A SINGLE WORD.

I understand some use the word and mean well, mean to lift people up, but it's still a word that limits the worth of a person and their humanity. It still says, "Yes, you are worthy to exist, but only 'cause I personally think you're nice on the eyes." It doesn't make sense to me, and I hate it. It's oversaturation of body positive campaigns and feminist movements is unacceptable. A person should have worth because they are a person; they deserve worth because they are worthy.

Everyone should be able to feel good about themselves, but not just because they are deemed "beautiful," no matter how genuinely accepting that may sound.

A girl shouldn't feel happy or accepted based on the sole fact that she is pretty or beautiful. She should feel accepted and loved and confident because she is caring or kind or kickass or inuitive or hardworking or accepting of others or a good leader or a successful goalie or writer or artist or science major or team member. Her self image shouldn't be based on the ever-changing, relative term "beautiful." She should be appreciated for all the aspects of her character and personality and ethics and achievements.

Beautiful is a fine word; it means possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, or think about. But you should want to do more.

I want to not just be delightful or pleasant, but to challenge, to fear, to learn, to fight, to intrigue, to cry, to believe, to question, to screw up, to bruise, to love, to win, to lose, to scorn, to earn, to do whatever I damn well please. Not just please people. Or allow anyone to smile condescendingly and brandish their "modern" view on the constructs of beauty. I'm calling bullshit, if you'll pardon my French.

What I'm saying is not 100% unbiased or unarguable, and I'm not here to hurt the feelings of those who want to be attractive, so please don't take it the wrong way when I say:

BEAUTIFUL is a trap. 

It is disguised with good intentions, even by those unaware of it's effect. Please don't fall in, for it takes a good while to climb back out.

YOU AREN'T BEAUTIFUL. (READ: YOU ARE MORE.)

YOU ARE POWERFUL.

YOU REIGN SUPREME.

YOU ARE YOUR OWN BEYONCÉ. 

OKAY?

YOU MAKE YOU,

SO WHAT WILL YOU BE?

Yay For Friendship Or Whatever

As I'm currently typing this it's 10:22 am, which is pretty early for me for a Wednesday, so keep that in mind if you come across any misspellings or mismatched tensed verbs and nouns or general word vomit. I had to get this down while I had it on my mind.

Today I want to talk about friends.

I am up at this nearly ungodly hour because of a friend. His name is JJ, and he functions as my college mother, much like my close friend Sammie. JJ is a good mom. He makes sure I eat and leave my room occasionally, stuff of that nature. I needed this very much last semester before Sam became functioning mom #2.

I met JJ in my anthropology class last semester, a course taught by a scatterbrained, ever entertaining Ashevillan named Jamie Patterson who would, on occasion, speak the words "genital cutting" and then wave her fingers in the air like some super unnecessary jazz hands. This never sparked conversation the way she wanted, but she was giving it her best effort. Culture can be a weird thing, which is why Jamie was kind of perfect for teaching that class. But back to my lovely, gimpy, Kate Spade obsessed, gay mom.

He knew everyone. More like seventy, eighty percent of everyone, but to me, who knows at this moment maybe nine percent of people, his active social life allowed me that familiar feeling of standing awkwardly while the person you know talks to someone(s) you don't know. I've had this feeling my whole life, which you understand completely if you know my actual mother. ( Hi, mom! ) JJ's intense, widespread social life was intimidating at times, but I realize that I would've gotten out a whole lot less my first semester without him. He was pushy and assuming and still does not comprehend the word no when on the receiving end. And rarely on the giving end, as he's involved in so many programs that I don't even try to keep track anymore. I just nod and move on when he mentions a something with someone for something else.

JJ is a character I'm very fortunate to have in my life. He drags me out of bed during finals week on a day that I don't even have a final, bribing me with Starbucks of course, and sits with me in the caf for a good hour while he eats his croissant and jam and waffle and I eat my eggs and bagel and pancake and we video each other at various, unflattering angles to upload to our snapchat stories. Literally this is sixty percent of our friendship. And I will always be grateful for it.

Another friend deserving some attention is the aforementioned Samantha Harris, functioning mom #2. She is a cool mom and a scary mom. I guess I just attract motherly types. They can probably sense my indirection and haplessness in the face of responsibility from miles away. They sniff me out and find me laying in my own filth, surrounded by old ramen cups and dirty mugs and my utter lack of adultness. Apparently I just shout HELP ME on a level incoherent to everyone but those tuned in to the mom station on their internal radios. Anyways, this Sammie person.

She is irreplaceable and a rare and beautiful disputation to my usual rotten luck and voluntary social isolation. We met through a friend of a friend on the day I got my nose pierced. While she did not partake in the cancellation of her general attractiveness to future employers as I did, she did get her cartilage pierced and totally supported myself, her roommate, and the friend of a friend's decision to put a hole in part of our faces. She weaseled her way into my life one invitation to dinner at a time after that, and then BAM! friends for life happened. On a side note though, she did not weasel, we were both very into eating food together. It's basically two thirds of our friendship. Food has gotten me lots of relationships, it seems. But more on that later.

Sam is just the kind of friend I need when I need one. She'll lounge around with me and order pizza and watch Disney movies until 3am on a weekday but is also the one who calls me to wake me up on days I absolutely cannot miss class and also will sit on me and flick me until I start doing my work  and threaten to take away my headphones so she'll know if I'm watching Daredevil or Friends again and not writing my paper that's probably due in less than twelve hours. She's a pal but also a life coach and I love her to death. She's totally chill with me just coming to her room and napping because she's just watching Finding Carter or Parks and Rec anyways. When I learned I wouldn't be returning to Chick-Fil-A this summer and was pretty down the whole rest of the day, she was just there, and knew that her presence was comforting as is. And she did hug me when I figured I needed one later on. We don't spend 24/7 together, but we know the other will always be available if a summoning is requested. She's my cool mom and my scary mom, and I love her.

What I'm trying to say is, be grateful for friends that make you a better person, keep you up and at 'em, and don't take you for granted.

Happy Almost Summer, and stay rad, pals.