The Truth of the Butterflies

Next up this week is Celeste’s candid self reflection on her struggles with an eating disorder, and how she’s been able to grow and flourish. My earliest memory of clear dissatisfaction with my body was when I was six years old, pressing my body against the horizontal wood slabs of my bed frame, examining the skin of my stomach poking between the gaps.  By 10 years old, I was methodically tightening my family’s belt collection over my entire torso, desperately wishing the leather would squish my body smaller.  “You are fat, disgusting, weird, ugly, worthless, less than.” 12 years old and these words colored my life.  My  words. Words I knew defined me because I was the taller, weirder, different younger sister of a popular, petite, pretty sister. Because I did really well in school, but was never the best. Because my mom discredited my hard work by saying school just came easy to me. My words never went away. They were with me in the morning as I grab...

This was the very first tattoo I got when I was a senior in high school, also what influenced the title of my blogger. These were inspired for so many different reasons. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer about 6 months before, and I feel like as a child there were always butterflies that caught my eye during hard times, even now it still happens. I'm sure it happens to everyone all the time but it's just something that I always notice. Also, my cousin Lisa loves butterflies and they for some reason just symbolize family, love, faith. They were something that got me through hard times, they were a sign that I was going to make it through. I do not regret them and if anything they are just a constant reminder that no matte what comes my way, I have the strength to overcome the challenge. And if I need help I always have my family to support me, and vice versa.

Either my sophomore or junior year of high school I visited Burlington, VT for the first time to visit UVM (which was amazing by the way) and the city was just...perfect. The people were so friendly and so down to earth, everyone just seemed to care. The city is right on the water across from Plattsburgh, NY. The city just made me happy, it felt calm...Also the first time I went I saw the real Ben & Jerry at Ben & Jerry's. It's funny because the part of Burlington I visited was not very big, like at all, but such a small part of a city can just feel...right. I know where most of the things in the city are already. I just love Church Street so much, it has such a great variety of stores, cafes, restaurants, and there are SO MANY dogs. The companies around the area always have really clever signs that can make almost anybody smile. Over the summer, I went back with my father and sister. It was just as wonderful as I had remembered. The city has actually gone more Gree...

In high school I was comfortable, I had plenty of friends that made me happy, high school wasn't that challenging although I did not make high honors. I never tried as hard as I could. I definitely let myself down. When you apply to college you instantly start to worry that you didn't try hard enough. You might get into all your colleges but probably not that one school you applied to for "shit and giggles" although you actually really, desperately wanted to go. And you're secretly super sad about it and pretend you never look at whether you got in or not...but in reality you know you didn't. You knew that you weren't going to get in, and even if you did you never would have been able to afford it. So you choose your college, and of course you were too stubborn to apply to the college close to home that would save $13,000/yr, so you choose the next cheapest and it's $26,000/year which is revolting. So your stuck going to this school you never looked a...

Number 1: Kat Von D's Shade & Light Eye Palette At this moment in time this is my favorite eye shadow palette, I think it works wonderfully with my eyes. It has cool, warm, and neutral browns. All matte. When I swatched them on my arm they are grouped by tone of brown. Left is at the top of my arm, and then the warm browns are at the bottom. You can go some casual eyes to smokey eyes and they blend beautifully together. The bigger colors are the base colors, then the color on the left is the crease color, the darkest shade is the outer corner color, followed by a highlight color. I love the neutral and cool colored highlight, but the warm is too warm to be a highlighter for me. These shadows are nicely pigmented and I suggest starting small and building up the two darker colors in each set. Number 2: Urban Decay's Naked 3 I have always loved the way pinks looked with brown eyes so naturally I was drawn to this palette. But personally it doesn't have the pe...