Dear Body,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I've been disrespecting you in favor of old habits and small satisfaction. They’ve prevented us not only from achieving the big things we want in life but also just pursuing our dreams on a daily basis.
I’ve made you helpless to help me.
You are my built-in support network, and I’ve been turning from you at every chance I got.
I have believed that I could hide you. Almost as if you were my imaginary friend that I could not speak of once i’d reached adulthood. I’ve confined you to the corners of parties and the sidelines of sports I once found joy in.
I’ve blamed you for being impotent, for somehow being less than all the other bodies. I’ve claimed I had a disease to distance myself from my choices and my guilt. Hoped that perhaps there was an explanation other than my own actions to explain the scars I’ve given you.
It is only now, at our highest weight and lowest self-confidence, that I can find the strength to acknowledge my shortcomings.
This is my fault.
This is not a question of looks, because every body is different and beautiful. That is true. But others who know they have respected their bodies are able to display them to the world with a confidence I cannot achieve. It is not because I was given a short stick.
Dear body, you are so so capable.
I have only remembered to thank you for healing when I fall. For making me better when I’m sick. You are like the God I pray to only when I am in need. Only out of desperation.
That is not the way to keep up a friendship.
I only remembered to talk to you today, to check in and see how you were feeling, because I was more lonely than I’d been in a long time.
You were there, the shadow of the person you once were, waiting for me to pull you out again and make you feel beautiful.
I took a picture of us. I wanted to cry.
You bear the stains and scars of one who has been through far more tragedy than us. Someone who has created life or barely survived a great disaster- some experience which should have bonded the body to the soul and become a symbol of a great feat they conquered together. A tattoo of their friendship.
Mine simply represent my attempts to suppress you.
In all other things, I rejoice in my uniqueness. My hazel eyes, my dominant left hand, my color-changing hair, fashion choices, loud voice, and dominant attitude.
I want to add you to the list.
I have always viewed it in a negatively light that i may not be able to eat the same way as my peers and remain the same physically. Let’s view it as preparation for the next fifty or so years together.
If I cannot trust you, who can I believe in? A friend I continue to betray will only be more likely to stab me in the back later down the line.
If I have not done all I can for you now, I wont have prepared us for the battle to come.
More than most, I hate to admit that I was wrong about something. I let friends go and grudges fester because could not stand up and do something about my mistakes.
I will not let you be one of them.
I cannot escape you like a hometown; you are not a ‘phase’ or a punching bag for me to act out upon.
Lets build back our trust, step by step. I will drag us out of this grave I dug, heave off the dead weight I so carefully deposited onto us to shield my insecurity, so that we may come back to life.
There’s a life I long to live together, body. I’ve been searching for love outside ourself for so long I forgot who I already had.
I want to date you.
I’m taking you out for a ride in our skin. When we get back I will massage you and clean you up, because taking care of you makes me feel good.
I want to invest in you.
I have been passive in the face of what I believed to be more pressing issues. This can no longer be the case.
The world now sees what I believed I could disguise. Even strangers can see my weaknesses and self-disgust laid bare, and they are turned off by my lack of love for you. Strangers know what I did not until today- I have to love you before I can spread my love into them.
They went elsewhere when they saw I was not ready to love them yet. I have to put my own safety mask first, before I can help someone else attach theirs.
We may not have the same relationship as the other bodies we see each day, but that is to be expected. Every relationship is different, and ours is unique, just like I like it.
In these bodies, we will live
in these bodies, we will die
and where you invest your love
you invest your life.
- Mumford and Sons
Dear body,
I love you.