A Letter To My Body

Date: Friday March 14, 2008
Posted in: Girly Stuff, me

(This was a BlogHer Initiative. I have been a little, um, preoccupied lately…but have been inspired by this topic. I may be a day late and a dollar short, but this has been on my heart. I could not help but write.)

You have never made it easy for me.

For as long as I can remember, I was referred to as a Big Girl. I was bigger than all of my friends. Taller, wider, thicker.

I was a regular kid who liked candy and Pop Shoppe pop. My Mom loved me to a fault. She did not want to deny me anything, for fear that I would choose my Dad over her. Any food, any treat, was mine to be had. I was never denied anything.

I had friends who were skinny. They could eat candy and drink pop and still retain those pencil-thin thighs. I was beyond envious.

My thighs were never pencil-thin. I had that inner thigh that swayed in the breeze and reminded me that I was not in the same class as the Pencils. I would pound my pillow while chanting, “It’s NOT FAIR!” and hope that you would hear me. That you would ramp up my metabolism and let me be like the other girls. Candy and pop, and pencil-thin thighs.

You did not listen.

This made me so very, very sad. I would cry myself to sleep and wonder why my body hated me so.

I started a new high school in Grade Eleven. Somehow, I ended up in the circle of The Beautiful People. They were also the people of the pencil-thin thighs. I wanted to be like them, so I turned on you. If you would not give me thin thighs, then I would not give you food. For days on end I would withhold food from you.

I got skinny. Scary skinny. But you would not wield. You kept that inner thigh in your grip, to show me that you would not be beaten.

I gave up.

The weight piled back on as I ate, and ate and ate. I was happy, but sad. I felt like a skinny girl trapped in a layer of blubber. Awkward, and uncomfortable.

I hit my mid-twenties. I was tired of feeling like I did not belong in my own skin. I started trying to learn about you and what would make you happy.

I also came to a realization. I was expecting you to be different that what you were meant to be. Just like my emotional and spiritual self felt frustrated by feeling that it was expected to be something different than who I am, I was expecting you to be different that who you are.

That was not fair.

I came to terms with who you are. I ate good food, I exercised. We came to a peace of sorts.

Then Matthew and I decided to have a baby. I got pregnant, and things were good. Then they were not good. They were so very, very bad. You failed me, and I WAS MAD. We had a deal, I thought, and you backed out on it. HOW DARE YOU?

I vowed to prove you wrong. I was going to try,and try, and TRY until we had a baby. The next baby came the first time we tried again. This one stuck.

After a mere eight hours of labour (which included three hours of pushing), you and I produced a perfectly healthy, almost ten pound, baby. He was everything I could have hoped for, and more.

You did not give me stretch marks, and were quick to recover. We worked together to have another baby. And then another.

I think that we have finally come to a resolution. I promise to eat well ninety percent of the time. And to exercise as much as I can with three small kids.

Your end of the deal is to respond to the workout I give you, and promise to do your best to support me in the best way you know how.

I am tired of fighting you. I think that if we work together, we can make it work for decades to come.

Deal?

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A Letter To My Body

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