It is the 1st February 2015. I am twenty years old, I haven't washed my hair in 48 hours, my skin is covered in spots, my moods are often unpredictable and I have never felt more beautiful in my life.
How do you feel when you read that? Are you happy for me? Are you happy that you'll finally stop pretending to find my self deprecating jokes funny (or the more recent development - just telling me that my jokes weren't funny)?
Or are you unnerved that I would make such a bold statement - unusually fearless and confident?
Truthfully, I've unnerved myself. This isn't a normal way for me to feel, this chirpy self assurance. For as long as I can remember, I've struggled to wake up as Floraidh Clement each day, in her spotty skin and unsure of whether she'll laugh or cry in those first few seconds of connecting those early morning dots - "who am I? What is my situation right now? Am I happy?"
The last month was a time when those questions were not ones I answered in total confidence - I'm Floraidh and I could be a lot better, my situation could be a lot better, I'm alright I suppose but still, I guess it could be a lot better.
But after a hard few weeks, I'm beginning to wake up with gratitude for being in this skin, no matter how blemished and in desperate need of some Sudocrem it truly is. I have found the people I was always meant to be friends with. I'm finding my degree course especially difficult at the minute, but I've not given up. I write a column I am sincerely chuffed with. I hope, at least, that I am making my mum and dad proud. I have let go of the people I clung to for fear of them moving on with somebody that wasn't me. I am growing less and less concerned about what people must be thinking of me with every word that leaves my lips.
But one concern that has taken me an incredibly long time to shake was the fact that I am not a conventionally pretty girl. I'm a plain girl who simply does the best with herself. For years I fully believed it to be the pretty girls who get noticed, the pretty girls who don't have to compensate for their lack of immediate allure by simply being funny or writing a blog to convey what they're really thinking; they are simply there, and that is enough for people to take notice of what they have to say.
But I have learnt particularly in the wake of the last month's adversities that feeling beautiful is not a purely aesthetic thing; it's not just pulling on the new bodycon dress my boobs look incredible in or buying a lipstick that surely costs the same price as return flights to Paris.
It is knowing people are finally starting to take notice of what I have to say because they sincerely want to hear it.
It is buying some badass heeled knee length boots that I stomp around and feel like I could smash through the glass ceiling in.
It is being surrounded by strong, intelligent girls who I'd probably feel intimidated by if I didn't know that that they miss their morning lectures just as often as I seem to, or wear Snoopy pyjamas to bed. It is having their positive influence and wisdom in my life; it is them making me both want to be better, but also reassured that it's fine to be how I am just now, too.
It is finding the dignity to walk away from a situation that is ultimately not making me happy. It is knowing better than to put myself in that toxic position where I feel I am competing with another girl.
It is taking every step possible to be my own best friend and doing whatever I can to look after my mental health.
It is finishing a yoga workout, lying there sweating and flushed on my bedroom floor in my American Pyscho t shirt and leggings, rolling over and dialling Pizza Hut; there is no punishing myself, no gruelling regime I acquire no pleasure from.
Yep, this "feeling beautiful" shenanigan seems to all be down accepting how I am, working with what I have and trying to refrain from ruthlessly punishing myself for what I don't. I mean, purchasing those boots helped infinitely...but still, I am starting to believe that the spotty chick in the mirror isn't so boring, charmless or uninteresting after all, and man am I beginning to really, really warm to her.
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