I'm small but I like it.

(This post was inspired by my friend and her blog.) 

There seems to be an unspoken rule among women that you're not supposed to know you have a great body, or that you're skinny, or that you think you're pretty. It's like we're all supposed to join together and hate our bodies, but if someone compliments us on how we look thinner, we're supposed to feel AMAZING! It's weird. What if I know I'm skinny already?

I've been a twig my whole life. My mom has been a twig her whole life. My grandma has too. I come from a long line of twigs. Still don't believe me? Go look at my little brothers. One is 6'7" and is lean and hipster looking. (He has luscious shoulder length hair that accentuates his cheek bones. The girls at his high school must be piles of goo when he walks by.)

Here are a few of my favorite (read: annoying) things that have happened in relation to my weight:

I was emailed once through Facebook by a girl in my church. She had been suffering from bulimia, and was positive I was anorexic because I'm very thin. She told me if I ever wanted to talk to her about my eating disorder, she would be all ears because she understood. HAHAHA... thanks for the help, girlfriend.

A boy entering my apartment with his friends sees me walk into the room, "Whoa, do you eat... ever?"
No, I'm the only person alive who doesn't need food to survive. I'm a magical unicorn of sorts. Here, take a picture with me so you can tell all your friends!

A former boss said to me one day while in his office, "Hey, you look like a concentration camp victim." And then laughed. That one actually got to me. I went to lunch, called my mom and bawled. That is not a compliment sir, you said I look like a walking corpse. SO not a compliment.

The list of these goes on and on. I thought being skinny is what every girl wants? Why is it so weird to people then when they see someone thin?

The truth is, there's a lot of things that keep me skinny. When I'm emotionally stressed, I'm not hungry. So if I ever go through something hard, I drop 10-15 pounds over about 6 months. It usually takes me the following year or two to put those damn pounds back on, so I'm never happy about the weight I lost. The other truth is, my genetics are small-boned, tall, lean frames. Even when I do gain weight, I'm still a size 3.

I think it would be so much better if people really could accept everyone regardless of size. Larger people want to be accepted for their weight and shape. Why can't people accept tiny, skinny people?

Here's what's happening in my head now... I no longer care if I look skinny. There are outfits that I used to avoid because they elongated my figure or made me look flatter chested. There are hairstyles I avoided because they made my cheekbones more pronounced and you could see my long thin neck. I just don't care anymore. I am a twig-like female. I'm actually really grateful for this twiggy frame I've been given. It's come in handy if I ever needed to squeeze through a fence! It's also come in handy because it's healthy. I am a healthy, happy, human being, and I love myself more and more the older I get. I even embraced my natural dirty blond hair color this year. THAT is confidence, kids.

I'm not posting this to brag, or to say my life has been hard as a thin person. I'm just posting it because I don't care anymore what anyone thinks.

Hi, My name is Lana and I'm naturally skinny. I can eat carbs all day and not get fat.

And I like it.

But that's not all that defines me... in fact I prefer not to define myself by my size. I prefer to define myself by my talents and what I have to offer the world.