They Called Me the “Ugly High School Graduate” in Front of Everyone — and My Family Expected Me to Smile and Accept It

overlooking the river in a city three hundred miles from the one where I grew up. I have clear skin, contact lenses, a body that I have shaped through discipline and intention, and the particular kind of confidence that develops in people who have been told they are worthless and have spent the intervening years assembling evidence to the contrary.continue reading …