Beauty marks

By Karent R.

A path of obstacles and struggles led Brenda Rivas to discover the beauty of self worth and acceptance. Rivas, a 17 year old student from Yerba Buena high school, discovered that wounds that once bled can seamlessly heal and transform into beauty marks. 

When Rivas was a little girl, her family struggled a lot financially. She recalls that seeing her parents struggle made her heart ache. 

 Even if  that was something that Rivas quite didn’t understand but she tried to for her family. 

Due to such circumstances, Rivas recalls not seeing her parents a lot, especially her dad. “It was probably difficult but they still managed to help me get my needs, and help me get through the things I need to do, and now I'm very grateful and thankful that they're still there for me and they helped me through everything ” she said. 

Even if she had her parent's support there was something missing. Rivas was going through a hard time with her self image and emotional growth. Rivas stated “growing up I was really insecure, and struggled to really love myself.” Rivas says that not knowing how to love herself was one of her biggest struggles, “it really had me kinda depressed because I was just so worried about how I looked and how I appeared to other people” Said Rivas.

With the absence of her parents and not one around to understand what she was going through,  Rivas felt lonely and not really understood. 

She felt that such circumstances like not seeing her parents a lot strengthened her relationship with her sister: “it was mostly me and my sister which is  probably why we are really close right now. We really only had each other and I feel like the distance is what really affected it” Rivas said. 

The lack of understanding and the absence of her parents were some of the factors influencing Rivas to feel lost, she recalls not  having many people to talk about her problems besides her sister but she still felt like some part of her was missing. Even if she had her sister, there is a lot more to understand from Rivas’s perspective. 

Rivas recalls not knowing what her true self was, nor liking the reflection of herself in the mirror, which led Rivas to let other people shape her the way they wanted. Rivas said  “A lot of the time I was really taking for granted and I used to let other people walk over me and I tried to please other people when in reality I should’ve focused more on myself.”

Now that she is older she has learned how to love herself, and even to this day she is still finding out who she truly is. Now she can tell absolutely everything to her sister, and she is now closer to her parents. Rivas knows that the absence of her parents, especially her dad, was not in vain.

She knows that they’ll do everything in the world to protect her, and be there for her whenever she needs them.

Finding self love especially for a little girl who feels lost and misunderstood is quite challenging, but Rivas revealed that she noticed people walking over her, and decided to stand up for herself with poise, and never let anyone walk over her again. 

Rivas said “now I do feel a lot more complete now I feel like I found myself.”