There was so much I used to want to change or just hated about my body. It’s so foreign to actually like what I see. The first time I ever felt that, was about 3 years ago. I had hoped to stop feeling disgust and shame, someday just feel neutral, peaceful. I never even thought to dream of actually liking my body, weird as that may sound.
Aside from some stretch marks/scarring/some butt dimples— there's nothing I’d want to take away or fundamentally change. The only thing I’d like to add are more exposed abs and a bit more muscular of a butt. Aesthetically I would prefer that, but also for the core & glute strength for health reasons.
Of all the crappy things I won in the genetic lottery (skin stuff, painful joint stuff, migraines, scoliosis, asthma), I was “blessed” with a good metabolism and overall bone structure, which I have come to appreciate a lot more, now. I’m tall and lanky, which, I always found goofy, and.. it is. But it’s me. I always hated my wide pelvis (combined with my height, I always saw myself as just “TOO BIG,” but I realize now that I actually have a decent hourglass shape. And I feel proportional. Balanced (even if physical balance eludes me still, haha).
I’ve said in here before, that working out regularly pre & post hip surgery (a 5-year experience) has really given me a much better relationship with my body. And it’s taken the painfully distorted carnival mirrorhouse glasses off. I’m not some hulking she-beast. I’m not too big. That sense that there’s just something inherently wrong and ugly has all but dissolved. One day, I just realized it wasn’t there. I see the bits of muscle I build or tone, and I see strength and hard work. I see overcoming pain. I don’t see a war with my body, but a team effort. I’m not just a floating brain with this unwieldy, unacceptable meat casing. We are one. I see self-love. I see health. I feel it. And I’m happy with it.
I’m 5’9”, 130 lbs, 34.5-26-35. I like my shape. I like my natural curves. I have long legs and trouble finding affordable jeans that fit, but my legs take me where I need to go. I like how my quads are showing up the more I ride my bike. I like how they carried me through my surgeries. How they give my cat a lap to purr himself to sleep on. I have long spidery fingers that have come in handy learning to play instruments. I have big [size 9], wretchedly ugly feet, with long hammer-toes. My 4th toe curls like macaroni. They turn blue in winter. They are my Witch Feet. And they suit the witchy, unruly gray strands of hair that have come in on my coarse, thick, frizzy brown mop in the past decade. I’m almost translucently pale, and prefer to be so. I have scars [from infections, injuries, & some surgeries] on my face & body. I have stretch marks galore, encircling my awkwardly wide-spaced breasts, more of them splashed across my inner thighs, hugging my hips, & creeping up my back. I bear the insignia of growth, change, survival, and experience.
Ideally, I would like a body that didn’t hurt as much as it has, but overall, I am finally happy with my body. I am grateful to have one, to feel at all, and to exist at all.
“I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one . . . but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! - Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come into contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?” - Thoreau, ''Ktaadn and the Maine Woods,'' 1848.