full speed ahead

74% of fijian women, after exposure to american media, confessed feeling "too big or too fat". this is commonly known as body dissatisfaction, and is a precursor to the development of eating disorders.

it is scientific fact that the more often a woman looks at popular magazines, the more likely she is to feel dissatisfied with her own body {in comparison to the "ideal" v.s. model bodies} and venture towards disordered eating.

i feel like this, today.

dissatisfied and on my way to disorder.

not about my bust size or my midriff. 

i have learned to avert my eyes from the unrealistic billboards, from the soul-crushing reality of my lack of resemblance to kiera knightly or blake lively, because i know i will never be that.

it can engulf you, if you let it, because it is everywhere. 

so you try to escape any potential situation of being point-blank with the airbrushed and altered picture of fiction. 

but how, when you live in provo {happy valley and couple-central}, do you remove yourself from the singledom that haunts your holidays and weekends as your once-single friends dwindle into oblivion?
i'm quite certain more than 74% of single provo residents-- quite possibly 100%-- have felt this dissatisfaction i am talking about. . 

living in a love-infected town with proposals at every turn has facilitated my own dissatisfaction with my apparent lack of 

. . . someone . . . 

which, most of the time, i'm alright with.
really.

it's when i start silently crying in tangled, and cannot stop myself the whole drive home, that i know i have been affected by the hypothetical billboard of couples and marriage i thought i was immune to.

sobbing into a bowl of spaghetti, my parents hugged me, and stroked my hair.

my knight will come one day, whoever he is. or so they say. that's what i'm holding on to.

my papa's pep-talk:

"dam the torpedoes--full speed ahead"

-civil war-

the take-home message for myself: dam the marriage-billboard couples!

and the accompanying dissatisfaction and disorder. 

{not really the actual couples... just bear with me on the spirit behind the saying}

 i'm going to live my life--full speed ahead.