Softball Girls – YOU ARE Beautiful!

I think one of the easiest things about having a daughter that plays softball, is that come game day – or tourney day, there really are no worries about what they will wear, or how they look. Most girls I know, get up that morning, slumber into their uniforms, and arrive at the fields with socked feet and sandals, eye-boogers, morning breath and hopeful anticipation and sheer happiness for the day ahead draping their ‘for now’ tired bodies.

And arrive as they may, one by one, they all look beautiful.

There is no judgment. There is no typical ‘girl meanness’ or laughing. There is no insecurity, no one feels like an outcast, or a blemish. No one is pulling at their clothes, slumping their shoulders, or hiding their beautiful face with a pile of make-up. Those girls that might be unlikely friends in a school setting, get along perfectly well as teammates. And pretty much, between the yawns and the pixie sticks, everyone is smiling, giggling, laughing, with no worries about whether they shaved their armpits or remembered to put on deodorant.

In fact, the only sort of judgments you hear, are things like, “Oh, I remember that pitcher.” Or, “There is that girl who hit the homerun.” Or, there is that shortstop who we hit the ball to every at bat last tourney who threw us out.” Any of the peeking around at clothing is more to match players with teams than to decide who has on the nicest outfit.

When you take away the pressure of putting on the make-up, and wearing the right clothes, and remove the worry about fitting in, and being accepted and worries that someone might laugh because they think you are too big, or too small – there is nothing left – but the girls. When you decide as a girl nation to work together and believe in the POWER of ONE – each and every one of you has a perfect niche in life where you feel loved, appreciated, beautiful and ENOUGH.

If it can be done on the softball field, it can be done anywhere.

Today, we remind you that YOU beautiful! Just the WAY YOU ARE! Every. Single. One. Of. YOU. (AND YES THAT MEANS YOU!)

The social pressures that girls place on themselves are nothing new. And yet the reality is that each and every girl – has the right to BUY into those preconceived notions of beauty or not. You have the CHOICE to accept yourself for YOU, or to feel like you will never be good enough, or live up to the silent expectations of what you think is beautiful.

Yes, that all might be easier said than done in an age where social media and television is constantly photo-shopped and airbrushed.

But the thing that we know from playing girls softball, is that IT CAN HAPPEN. It does, nearly every single Saturday of the year.

There is nothing wrong with taking pride in your appearance. There is nothing wrong with wearing a smidge of make-up, or picking outfits from your closet that match. There is nothing wrong with your desire to be beautiful.

But there is something wrong with thinking or believing that your appearance makes you WHO you are. That your appearance is either WORTHY of UNWORTHY. There is something wrong with looking in the mirror and feeling like you will never be enough, or be beautiful. Because you know what? YOU ARE.