Hoping She Keeps Up With Me

I decided to take part in BlogHer’s Letter to My Body initiative...

Dear Body,

I feel lucky, very lucky, to have always had positive, well-grounded, well-rounded female role models in my life. Growing up I didn't feel pressure to be thin, to look a particular way, to subscribe to a particular belief system of what females should/shouldn't look like. I thank my Mother, my Sister, my Aunts for instilling in me the belief that what I say, what I do, that who I am is always more important than what I look like.

Until the age of 14 you were incredibly good to me dear friend, you allowed me to be a competitive gymnast, we danced, we swam, I like to think I was good to you too. Our relationship could only be described as healthy, just the way my Mother had intended. That moment in high school where I realized I wasn't as thin as the rest of my friends, and that fact alone mattered to an awful lot of people (mainly bullies and young men), that moment in grade nine when that male classmate called my size eight ass FAT I decided we couldn't be friends any longer. And while I didn't exactly go to war with you, starving you, attempting to make you apart of the masses I unravelled all the good work my Mom, my Sister and my Aunts had done. I stopped dancing for worry of what others would think, I quit gymnastics entirely, I swam only when I had too. I gave up doing what I loved because I DID NOT want to be judged based on the size of my ass. Instead I replaced healthy activity and my normal weekday schedule with entirely different sort of schedule of afternoon soaps, snacking on junk food and my own personal brand of self-loathing.

And while I may not be a sad, angry, frustrated 14 year old any more I still fight with you my dear friend (if you'll still let me call you that). You tell me to drink water, I pour more coffee down your throat. You encourage me to eat, healthy, good for you food, instead I eat on the run, offering you refined carbohydrates and sugars. You plead with me to join a dance class because you know how much fun I used to have, and I tell you I can't because I'm scared, scared of not being as competent as I used to be, as flexible, as able to ignore the snickers that might come my way.

I struggle everyday with the fact that I am not as kind to you as you've been to me. I worry that at some point you're going to rebel and inform me that YOU ARE ON STRIKE, that until I start caring for you in the manner I should that you are not going to do what I need you too. And yet that thought never seems to be to be the motivation I need.

I'm struggling to find balance in our relationship again, and I'm failing miserably.

I hope you stick it out with me, I hope you plan to be around for the long haul. Just so you know, I called a dance studio today... I am trying to be better to you... honest... I promise....

Hugs,
K