I've been breaking out in acne a whole lot these days and I can't tell if it's from stress or from the natural life-giving cycle that all women go through from puberty to menopause. Or maybe it's from all the chocolate and peanut butter I've been eating recently :X

Anyway, I frown a lot when I look in the mirror; not at the general face, but at each individual, angry, red zit >:(. Usually I don't mind having a few because to me, some faults add character to a personality; similarly, some scars or...pimples can add character to a face. Disagree if you will, but I'm sticking to my guns on this.

That doesn't go to say, however, that I take very strongly to the phrase "the more the merrier". Especially when it comes to acne and people that I hold close, the motto that I more accurately live by goes something like "the fewer the better".

So I spend a good minute or two just staring down my zits very meanly, willing them to disappear; I imagine invisible little lasers zapping them down and out of existence. After a while I just blow a sigh and relent to finish brushing my teeth. Usually I can laugh off the feeling of insecurity that creeps into the back of my mind (which is fueled into a frenzy by my mother's ever-so-helpful comments she'll say to me in passing, like " You'll never get married if you don't lose some weight"). Today, as I stood before my bathroom mirror and scrutinized my face after the face wash, toner and lotion had been applied, I thought about how glad I was to still be able to smile, shrug and continue on with life.

There's this girl I know; she's very young but had this skin condition of lots of outbreak and swelling which were the resulting side effects of a medication she'd taken. She became severely depressed and as her self-esteem descended lower and lower, she began to contemplate killing herself.

What's the difference between a girl who can smile at her scars and imperfections, and a girl who begins to lose hope because of those same things?