be a Cheeto

I just finished eating an ENTIRE bag of “fat-free” cheddar “baked” Cheetos, a bowl of “paleo cauliflower chicken chili,” a whole “organic” apple, a brick of “organic dark” chocolate and a plate of “healthy” grilled salmon with “roasted vegetables” and “brown rice”—all of which, quotation marks indicated, are meant to make me feel like a super skinny betch—and yet…and yet…I’m still about to press the confirmation button on my GrubHub app to have an alfredo chicken pizza delivered straight to my couch.

Certain calories just don’t count, right?

Certain things in life aren’t supposed to count. I don’t count that time I used Sun-In on my hair and bleached it a terrible orange. I don’t count the time I put dish-washing liquid into my dish-washer and was greeted with a floor full of bubbles. I don’t count the time I bought 3 bottles of car oil to try to make my “40% oil life” indicator on my car go up. I don’t count these things just like I don’t count the calories hidden underneath words like “fat-free” and “healthy” and “organic.”

I just don’t count them.

Perhaps this is where I’ve gone wrong. Or perhaps this is the best thing I’ve ever learned to do.

We grow up learning to feel bad for our mistakes. It starts out simple—you take a wrong step, you fall. You cry. You get back up. And then it gets more complicated. You spell the wrong word. You get a red mark on your paper. You still pass kindergarten. You move on. And then it gets even harder. You ask that cute guy out. He spits on you. You cry in the girl’s bathroom and ruin your purple sparkly eyeliner. Everyone knows you cried. It’s tough.

But still, that all seems relatively tame when you’re in your twenties. Or thirties. Or forties. Or wherever you might be. Because, doesn’t it seem that no matter how OLD you are, what really matters is where your MIND IS AT? It’s where yo mind is at yall. Where yo mind is at.

My mind has been stuck at the bottom of that fat-free pan of brownies lately. Where the fake sugar sticks with the fake spray butter. It’s all fake down there. That’s where my mind has been. My thoughts revolve around thoughts of self-deprecation and feelings of not being good enough. Feelings—basically—that hold no weight. Just like the ingredients they sit in.

YOU—no matter who YOU are—are NOT insignificant. You are not fat-free. You are not low-calorie. You are not low-sugar. YOU are real and creamy and delightfully sinister. You are the real deal. YOU---and I—are WHOLE.

Don’t let yourself buy into the labels surrounding you. Don’t let yourself buy into the notion that YOU are “a perfectionist” or “lazy” or “dumb” or “goth” or “a feminist” or “gay” or “ignorant” or “shy” even if that description of yourself is good—YOU ARE NOT A LABEL. YOU are ENOUGH—you are SIGNIFICANT—you are HERE for a REASON. YOU, as pure as you came, are here for a reason. You don’t need a label to justify that. You don’t need someone to appreciate you to be needed here. You don’t need not nothin’ on this whole earth to prove that you are supposed to be EXACTLY where you are.

So eat that pan of full-fat brownies and love that gut. Love your “organic” and your “fat-free” and your “vegan” labels but know this: these labels don’t define the things you eat, or the things you buy, or the things you ARE. You—in all your GLORY and PURENESS and SOLITUDE—you are perfect JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.

Be a Cheeto and go save the world.