#FridayFaves: Loralie Young, A Letter To My Skin

IT’S FRIDAY! YAY! FRI-YAY!  It’s Friday and I’m excited to bring back my Friday Faves, a spot where I get to feature some of my favorite people and share what they are doing. Today I get to share an incredible article from Loralie Young, a talented artist and beautiful soul living in Cambodia.

I met Loralie online through the magic of the Facebook. I had seen her casually online in a group hosted by Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson called Being Boss (OMG I LOVE THOSE LADIES! ::Fangirl Moment::) but we only really connected when she commented on a post made by a mutual friend, Heather Jabornik of Hiya Tootsie! and Candy Ass fame. Heather was giving a shout out to the amazing Lady Gaga after her SuperBowl LI halftime performance in which she absolutely slayed, and lamenting the online trolls who tried to body-shame Gaga for daring to bare her belly. I mean, come on.

That’s when Loralie wrote the most amazing comment I’ve seen in ages, and I reached out asking if she would let me share it here with you.  It’s an incredible piece of writing, and I’m grateful that Loralie allowed me to share it.  I hope that you find comfort and inspiration in it; I certainly have.  Please share. <3

Letter to My Skin

Skin. . . You’ve really made things hard. Oh, how we are judged by you. By your color, by your size, by your elasticity, by your age. . . You mask the person behind, distracting us from seeing the beauty of inner Self and focus only on the beauty of outer appearance.

You have millions of products and services dedicated to making you ‘better’, more ‘beautiful’, more ‘likeable’. People have lived, died, starved, feared, and even gone to war over you.

As a society, we have been trained to see you first when meeting someone, and subconsciously (or consciously) pass judgment, depending on our own personal ‘Skin Code’ that is ingrained in our thinking from birth.

But Skin, here’s the thing. I am kinda over it.

I’m tired of how obsessive we have become over you. I’m exhausted just thinking about the million different things I ‘should’ do to make you, my own Skin, more likeable, more perfect. I’m tired of being judged and put in a box because of you. I’m tired of being on the brunt end of jokes because of how you look, and enduring shame and embarrassment to be. . . well, in my own Skin.

Of course, I will still have time for you. . . I still have feelings for you and we’ll keep in touch. . . I want you to be healthy, but I also know that a ‘perfect Skin’ (is there really such a thing?) is sometimes only hiding something less than perfect inside. We both know this to be true.

So I’ve decided that you, dear Skin, are an unreliable litmus test for determining a person’s true Self. I have decided that evaluating a person’s Self based on their words, their actions, their characters, and their Truths are what are of ultimate importance to me. You will no longer get to make all of the judgment calls. You’ll still be a part of me, but you don’t get to make split-second characterizations anymore.

I choose to look for and trust in others’ true Self, taking the time needed to make my own opinion, without your input. I won’t give you more power and control than you deserve.

I just hope that I’m not the only one breaking up with this toxic relationship we’ve had. . .Hang in there Skin.

Bio: Loralie Young is a wife, mother and the artistic vision behind Paper Monsoon Design. She lives in the Kingdom of Wonder (Cambodia) and is passionate about making the world a more beautiful place for everyone. A creative designer by day and a fierce believer in love all of the time, she chooses to look for the silver lining of every monsoon in life.