Potato nose, chicken legs. That’s what the kids used to call me. I pretended not to care, of course, always chanting mom’s words in my head: Don’t listen to them, Gracy. They don’t really mean it. But there was only one problem—these kids were right. My big fat nose did look like a potato and my ridiculously disproportional skinny legs did seem like they belong on a chicken. God, how I hated my potato nose; how I hated my chicken legs. I must have been eleven or so. Even before the Internet, even before Facebook, Photoshop, and envy-inducing selfies, I felt ugly. But I never told anybody about it. I was afraid that if I say it out loud, it would somehow be true. As I grew up, something happened to me—people around me started to tell me how pretty I was. But no matter how many times I’d hear it, I never quite believed it. Because whenever I looked in the mirror, all I could see was the same old potato nose, chicken legs.

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