You're Beautiful, and You're All Mine. (Body Praise)

Transcript

Yeah. Yep. No, no, no, she's, um, she's asleep right now.

Sure, I'll let her know you checked up on her. Yes, yes, I'll get her home safely. Don't sweat too much, come on.

Uh, no, we get back on Tuesday. Hey, it's only a few days. It's not like we're gonna- Okay, yes.

Yes, nothing dangerous. Yep, got it, yeah. Um, so, skydiving then mountain biking, yeah? I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking.

God, don't you have something better to do than nagging me? You know, like, work. Look, okay, she appreciates you checking up on her enough.

I'm sure she'll message you when we get there. Alright, look, I'll tell her to message you first, okay? Is that good with you? Alright, cool.

Yeah. No, she's sleeping like a baby. It's, it's the cutest thing, oh my god.

Yes, yes, have you seen her when she- It's the cutest thing, it's the cutest thing. No, you should see, like, she is just so peaceful. No, no, no, hey, I appreciate the call.

I'll keep you updated too, so don't worry too much, okay? Yeah, yeah, it's your job too, sure, sure. Okay, okay, yeah, we'll go ahead, yeah? I'll message you, alright? Yeah, okay, bye-bye.

Oh, sorry, was I too loud? Okay, okay, that's good. Do you not want to go back to sleep, or- You can't? No, no, it's fine, it's fine.

Uh, nope, we're just off the interstate. There's still a ways to go. We'll get there at the crack of dawn, maybe? Not too sure.

Why, you getting hungry? You sure? We can stop by a gas station, if ever.

Alright, just, just let me know. Yes, I am in a good mood. Why, is it obvious? You know, I didn't want to bring this up, but, um.

.. Well, maybe I shouldn't. Okay, okay, yeah, I'll say it.

It's just. .. Um, I don't know, it feels like there's something.

.. There's something off with you. And I know we promised to communicate, and to just let each other talk whenever we feel like it, and all that, but.

.. I don't know, I guess I'm just. ..

I guess I just can't help it. And, look, you don't have to tell me, or anything, I just. ..

I just want you to know that I'm here, okay? Um, well, do you. ..

Do you want to talk about it? No, I honestly have no idea. You seem to be in high spirits, for the most part.

Um, but. .. It just seems like there's, um.

.. There's something bugging you, every now and then. I'm sorry if I'm, like, drifting on and off my.

.. My thing, I'm just not. ..

Super. .. I don't know, I just feel like there's.

.. Um, but yeah, um, I-I was just saying that. ..

Something just seems to be bugging you. Um, every now and then. Uh, is it.

.. Studies? No? Okay.

Well, I haven't got a scooby-dooby clue. Um, so just. ..

Just know that I'm here. Okay. Here.

Come on. Grab my hand. Come on.

Yes, it's safe. This is just a straight shot down the road. Pumpkin.

Come on. Hold my hand. Better? Yeah? Alright.

Good. I'm here. I'm here.

No, no, no, just. .. Just go ahead.

Just say whatever you feel like saying. Yeah? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Hey, if it gets too much, I'll let you know, okay? If it's too much information or I feel like I won't be able to handle what it is that you'll say or you're saying, I promise.

I promise to let you know, okay? So just ease up a little and let me know, okay? Just let me know.

Yeah. Yeah. How long have you been, you know, going through all these things? Yeah.

That long. Was no one able to help you or anything? I mean, I'm not one to talk, but I was just wondering why it took you this long to bring this up with me.

Not like you have to, of course, just. .. I was just wondering.

Okay. Yeah. No, no, no.

I see. I see. Well, yeah, it's a lot, but it's good.

It's good that it's a lot. Well, not like. ..

I'm not saying that it's good that you're going through a lot. I'm just saying that I'm glad that you're able to tell me all these things, you know? I'm glad that you're able to.

.. I'm glad that you're able to let me know. A lot, is what I'm saying.

I just. .. I don't know.

I know it's stupid of me to think this, but I just wish I was there for you from the beginning. But I wasn't, but. ..

Yeah, I know, I know. Thank you. Just hearing you talk about all these things reminded me of when I was a little kid.

Of course, not to compare, but your problems are much more pressing than mine were when I was a kid. But, you know, I was a pretty short kid. Well, you know that.

And I didn't have a lot of friends when I was in primary. It was just sort of me just hanging around, you know, going from group to group. Just chilling, I guess, as much as a little eight, nine-year-old could chill.

I just remember one month, it was dead in the middle of the school year, I went to the barbershop and I asked them to give me like a block two by. .. I forgot what you call it, but.

.. To give me this haircut. But it was really in at the time.

And I thought it would look good. I really did think that it would look good. Well, you probably know where this story's going to go.

It was a horrible, horrible, horrible haircut. If I could go back in time, I would go back to that hairstylist and just be like, What are you doing? I'm a little kid.

Why would you make me go through all this? I was finished with the haircut and everything. And I thought it looked okay when I got home.

I knew I was going to grow into it and everything. But I got to school and it was rough. It was rough.

People I didn't even know started making fun of me. But basically, to cut a very long story short, that was really the first time that I looked in the mirror. When I got home, I looked in the mirror and saw someone less.

I saw someone that wasn't worth much, if anything, at all. And it was stupid. You know, it was just a bunch of kids messing around.

But I just started to look at myself and. .. I don't know.

Something about that day just made me notice a lot of things that I wouldn't have noticed before. I was breaking out. My acne was getting really bad.

I was gaining a little weight. I used to be pretty thin when I was younger. But around that time, I started gaining a lot of weight.

And unhealthy weight, too. It's not the weight that's good. It's just that I was eating horrible.

My glasses just, for some reason, it just bothered me that day. It didn't fit my frame. It didn't fit my face.

It didn't accentuate my nose. It made my lips look weird for some reason. I don't know.

It was all in my head. It was really difficult not to see all these things and not just make a laundry list of things that I could change. And I remember dreading, just absolutely dreading, going to school the next day.

And, you know, lo and behold, the bullying didn't stop. At least until I had to go back to that barbershop and beg, just beg that hairstylist to change it, to change it for free because I had no money. I wasn't with my parents or anything.

I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say at this point. I'm just saying it's, there are a lot of things that I see about myself, even to this day at some point, that I just wish I could change a little bit.

I'm pretty confident in the way I look. Just it's free to imagine. And your imagination can go to a lot of different places when you're stressed, when you're going through a lot of things.

I mean, for Pete's sake, this stupid little scar that I have on me has been bugging me for my entire life. You've seen it. It's the scar, the one you always ask me about.

Yeah, yeah, it's the one on my thigh. You always asked, but I just never got to answering it, I guess. Well, now you know.

Yes, yes, I promise to open up more. Don't worry, okay? It was in the past.

And hey, you should open up more too. I like it when you do. I like it when you do.

Sometimes it just feels like I'm blabbing too much, you know? Especially when it's about something like this. I mean, I have more stories that I could tell you about if you'd like.

But you could also tell me more about your stuff. Would you like to talk more? Yeah? Okay, yeah, go ahead.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Right, right, right. Well, hey, I really appreciate you telling me all these things.

I know I always say this every time we open up about anything at all ever, but it takes a certain kind of strength, a certain kind of sureness, I guess, about yourself now to really open up about stuff like this in the past. It's never easy. It never will be.

It never has been. So I really appreciate that. I can't even imagine revisiting all these little things and even talking about the things you're thinking of right now.

You don't need me to say all these things. I mean, I didn't think I'd be saying all these things to you either. I'm just.

.. Sometimes it just feels like people don't want to listen, but most of the time they do. I just can't help but feel that they don't give a crap.

I don't know why. It's just the feeling, I guess. You feel it too? Yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess to combat that stupid feeling, I will talk a little bit more if you would like. Yeah? Okay.

Okay. I remember I was phys ed that day. I was in eighth grade, I'd say.

We had table tennis that year, and it was like a free period, so we were just. .. No, no, no, actually, there was a tournament, a table tennis tournament within the class, and we were just playing a bunch of 1v1s, round robin.

I don't know, I don't even know what that means anymore. Just, you know, loser leaves, loser gets replaced, whatever. And it was like the fourth or fifth round.

You know, I was pretty good at table tennis, I'm not going to lie. So I was playing with my friend, and, you know, my other friends were just messing around, and they decided to start cheering for my other friend. So every time he scored, they would go just bananas, but every time I scored, they would be like boo, boo, boo, or even worse, they would just dead silence.

No reaction whatsoever. God, it was so stupid. But yeah, that wasn't like the big issue or anything.

Well, it was. I got home, and for some reason, I just couldn't shake that feeling. It felt like they.

.. It's so stupid. It.

.. Sorry. Okay, we're good.

It felt like they were. .. It felt like it was charged.

It felt like there was a lot more to it than just them making fun of me. For some reason, I started to think that they actually hated me. You know, all those girls and all those guys that were cheering on for my other friend.

For some reason, I started thinking that they actually liked only my friend and not me. Like they just absolutely hated me and wanted me to actually lose. Well, I won, and, you know, they weren't happy about that.

So, I remember that night, I was just lying down on my bed, and I couldn't fall asleep. It was a string of really, really bad weeks during that period. And I started to think about my body, and I started to think about my hair, and I started to think about my skin and my stupid eyebrows.

And how my back was a little uneven, and I just couldn't sleep. I couldn't bring myself to sleep. I was just lying down, staring at the ceiling, and just thinking about it like, God, there's people out there that are dealing through, that are going through actual problems, you know?

Like, well, yes, I know. Yes, I know. It is a problem.

I'm not trying to belittle it. I'm just saying. There's people out there that don't even know what food they're going to eat, or if they're even going to be able to eat the next day.

And I'm over here, wide-eyed, red-eyed, not even sniffling, just not even able to sleep, just because I feel like people don't like the way I look. And I was a kid, of course, so it was a big thing. And I just, I just wish I was stronger, you know? I just wish I knew the right words to tell myself that day, or that night, to make it all go away.

But I didn't have the right words, and I still don't today. So I cried. I cried myself to sleep.

Just because of that stupid little joke my friends made. And in hindsight, it's pretty funny, but it was not funny to me back then. It was pretty traumatic.

But yeah, I guess moral of the story is it's very easy to spiral when you have a lot of things going on around you. You know, it's probably not just the thing that you're feeling right now, this whole thing. There's probably a lot of other things as well that we can look into, that we can work on, that we can really put our time in.

Okay? Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just driving and telling a very deep, hard-to-heart story.

Do not mix well. But I'm glad, though. It's just so crazy to me how I didn't have an idea that you were going through all these things, and maybe you're just really good at hiding it to me and to everyone else, but it just looked like you had things figured out, I guess.

It just looked like you didn't need help. It looked like you didn't even want help, you know? But hearing now all the things that you told me has made it abundantly clear that we really should open up more about our stresses, our personal problems.

Yeah, easier said than done, though. We can go on and on about going through and talking about all these little dumb things we went through, but, of course, not to say that our problems are dumb. I'm just saying we can be a little dumb at times thinking about all these things.