YOU are perfect.
Even your imperfections are perfect because they are perfectly tailored to you, and have played a crucial part in shaping your core. No one can take away the core of who you are.
Ravishers… Oh my sweet baby Jesus in heaven, RAVISHERS!
What the hell happened over the last few days?
I post one little article about Auntie Bey going all in at the Superbowl and people lose their damn minds! Your girl needed a mental break, but honies I am BACK! And I am back with the gift of love.
Yes, I know it’s “I touch myself” week here at Rav, and while I love when my fingers do the walking (like seriously y’all, damn), I wrote you a love letter. Because, well, I love you beauties.
You make me birthday-cake happy when I share some crazy life-truth and I get an email that basically says, “Girl, me too.” Every time I get an email like that, or see a comment on a post, I quietly say to myself, “We are not unicorns.” So thank you for giving me the strength to continue sharing my truths.
Yes, I wrote you a love letter, and it goes a little something like this:
Hey Beautiful,
Yes, you. You, sitting there, reading this, wondering when I’m going to give you the side eye for questioning if I really meant YOU (yes, I sure did give you the side eye). Do you know how fabulous you are? Have you any idea how much more delicious the world is because you’re in it?
No one laughs out loud in inappropriate places quite like you do. I know you do this because I do it; and remember, we’re not unicorns. If I’m going down for laughing too loud, you’re coming with me.
No one slides through this world trying to be confident and cool and full of self-love when the world is hell-bent on tearing you down quite like you. I see you.
I see you every day wishing you were skinny like Gisele or stacked like Auntie Bey. I see you wishing your hair was straight, not curly; or curly and not straight. I see you wishing you were lighter, darker, more bronze, less orange. I see you, trans women, wishing you didn’t have to have the pronoun talk with yet another person.
I see ALL of you Ravishers and I have something to tell you.
YOU. ARE. PERFECT.
In all your resplendent, sparkle-bomb, delirious imperfect glory, you are so magnificently perfect.
The gap in your teeth, your adorable underbite, your subtly sexy overbite, the ears that stick out a little too far, the belly that masquerades as a 2nd trimester trophy but is really a delicious food baby (God bless the Lords of Pizza), the flat booty, the rotund booty, the F cups and the double As.
The girl in the wheelchair, the girl with the bedazzled crutches, the girl who will never hear my voice, and the girl who will never see my face — all of you — PERFECT.
Even your imperfections are perfect because they are perfectly tailored to you, and have played a crucial part in shaping your core. No one can take away the core of who you are.
And honey, to quote Rihanna, your core (i.e. your soul) shines bright like a diamond.
You’ve survived teasing, bullying, eating too much, eating too little, not eating at all, divorce, breakups, deaths of parents, deaths of children, deaths of pets you loved like children, children you love but sometimes desperately need a break from, cheating partners, and partners you want to cheat on.
You’ve even survived domestic violence. And mental illness. And suicide attempts.
And you’re still here. Beautiful, sparkly, smiling through your burning eyes because of running mascara, imperfectly perfect YOU. I applaud you for being here.
I applaud you for giving life the Five Fingers of Death and deciding to show up for whatever the day brings — every day.
I applaud you for saying “something’s not right, I need to talk to someone” and seeking help.
And I applaud you for attempting to take the first step on your body love journey by simply saying, “I am ENOUGH.”
(If you haven’t said it, go to the closest mirror right now, look yourself dead in the eye and say it. Say it until you start to feel the change in your heart. And believe me, you will feel it — have Kleenex nearby.)
For these reasons, and so many more (God, SO many more), I applaud you,
I love you, and I thank you.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being vulnerable with me, trusting me with your secrets, and allowing me to see you for the beautiful beings you are.
Love, your sassy, loudmouthed, imperfectly perfect sister,
Adiba
