OH.

It's slowly dawning on me that I'm not ugly at all. We all get teased about our looks in grade school. The problem was, I really believed it. I honestly thought that if a guy really loved me, perhaps he'd be able to love me in spite of my appearance, or maybe because he was too low on the totem pole to get something prettier and more desirable. It had never once crossed my mind that someone might actually like me exactly the way I am.

It's an epiphany.

How much of my life have I wasted tolerating abuse and men who didn't especially cherish me, all because I seriously believed that I was sooooo sub-standard compared to all the other women out there?