Slaves to Comparison

Women are slaves to comparison. I used to say that women are only slaves to comparison if they let the comparison happen, but more recently I'm realizing that comparison is nearly never an act of volition.
I happen to have this one friend who compliments me a lot. Most of the time, I just blush and look away, because I'm not only flattered but also slightly overwhelmed that this person would notice something specifically interesting about my appearance.
Truth be told, the aspects of my appearance that I like are my hair and my eyes. But these details seem dulled when compared to other women. I have long, blonde hair. It's natural. I like it. But that girl has longer, shinier, softer hair than I could ever hope for; that girl over there has better natural highlights. Whatever it is, some girl, somewhere, will always, always have better hair than me.
So, I learn to be lured into a false sense of esteem. I start to feel great about how I look, then the homecoming queen shakes her perfect hair, smiles her perfect smile, walks her perfect walk, giggles her perfect giggle, and I feel entirely, in every respect, ugly and alone.

I'm a good girl. I've always been taught that beauty is not wholly based on the outward. I know that pageants, prom, homecoming, etc. aren't the basis for what a person is like on the inside... but it still kills me to be ugly. I watched that video that Dove posted (see link here) and it never really had an impact on me. In my mind I could never relate to those girls because when I watched the video I thought that they were physically beautiful women and that I was different, that I was an exception to the laws of beauty.
I thought that their insecurities were inferior to mine, that their complaints about the everything from the length of their nose to the roundness of their face were all invalid because when I looked at their faces as a whole, I saw normal, pretty people. I assumed that when people looked at me they couldn't possibly see the pretty things because they were so overwhelmed by how my eyebrows are too dark, how my face has acne scars from high school, how my eyes bulge a little when I smile, and how my chin has the worst dimple ever, and how my nose was broken and never really repaired, so it's crooked.
People often marvel at how pretty people think themselves ugly. I don't. I know my flaws only too well, because I see them in the mirror every. single. morning. I see them in pictures, and even in the reflection when the computer screen goes dark. I fixate on them. I obsess over how to change them.
Comparison makes the whole situation unbearable sometimes. I'm not thin. My face has a --although I hate this word there is simply no replacement sufficient-- hearty, Polish look rather than a delicate, gentle, homecoming, prom queen, perfect yearbook picture look. I fought this for years. I tried diets, but I'm a reasonable weight, so they didn't really affect me or my face shape. I tried makeup, but ugh... I never really was an artist and it never really looked right on me.
Obsession never changed anything. I only ever tortured myself with my daily insecurities because I could never fix them for good.

I'm headed off to college, and I've had it with the lies. I'm a grown-up, and the lies that I've been telling myself all these years about being physically inferior are garbage. Garbage that I don't need or want. I'm starting to see myself as something God created for a reason. I've always known that beauty isn't everything, and now I'm coming to realize that truth in full. God gave me a purpose on this earth. Obviously, that's why I'm still here. If his purpose for me required that I be beautiful, I would be. I'm just as beautiful as I'm supposed to be. Maybe I'm not runway material. If I'm not, then I'm not supposed to be.
Although this frame of mind will most likely sound abrupt and less desirable to the reader, I assure you that it's superior to my previous state of mind. Coming to the realization that it doesn't really matter if I'm pretty or not has been one of the most freeing epiphanies in my entire life. I feel like my body and I are ready to conquer the world. Beautiful or not.