Body -ody - ody -ody

Note: This post is not an invitation to comment on my body.

A Self-Love Image

Freshman year of high school, a friend called me an Amazon Woman and I never looked back. Wonder Woman was an Amazon Woman. That meant I was like Wonder Woman.

----------------<3----------------

I love myself out of self-preservation. And when I say I love myself, I am talking about not only my body, but my whole being. For this personal essay however, I will be talking about my body (-ody-ody-ody-ody). My skin, my stretch marks, my fat, my back fat, my flat ass, every inch of hair on my body and every single freckle - I'm so in love with all of it.

I am trying this new thing where I live in more gratitude, and I am so grateful to (and for!) my body. It does SO MUCH to help keep me alive. There are definitely still days I struggle with my body, and there are days I struggle with being alive - so I had to learn to love myself in order to survive. It's about learning what makes me feel good in my skin and what doesn't. It does not matter what anyone else thinks of my body, they don't have to live in it. I do. It's my home. I'm in this body for (hopefully) a good long while, and it does so much for me. So I try to say "Thank You" every goddamn day.

In the past, I thought the rest of my life would be me trying to lose weight, trying to look a certain way, and once I did, THAT was when I would find love, that was when I would be happy, that was when I would finally feel good about myself, and that was when I would be worthy. I know now I'm worthy no matter what I look like. I can hug my past self and tell her that she is just as worthy, and she never has to go back to feeling bad about the way she looks. I'm so grateful my body stayed with me even when I hated it.

I often say that I looked like a woman before I was a woman. I developed early, and was 5'6" by the time I was in 5th grade. I had horrible acne well into my 20s, and once it cleared up was the fist time I noticed how crooked my nose was. I guess that was where the turning point was - It felt like my adolescence had been extended, that I would always be wanting to change something about myself. My skin was finally clear (after much trauma), but my scars were still there. I had lost weight in college, but I was still an amazon woman. What was to be done? I could keep fighting to change my body, or I could change my relationship with it.

If you were to tell me at 15 that there would come a day I wouldn't hate my body, I would have thought you were crazy.

The world always needs more kindness, and I'm included in that.

So are you.

That's mainly what I want to tell you, dear reader, incase you needed to know - it is possible to love your body. I hope to be proof of that, and to let you know first hand that it is a very personal journey. No need to post about it if you don't want to, no need to declare it to the world in a blog post - I got you covered. I'm here to encourage you to keep going! I will always cheer you on and help in whatever ways I am able!

I believe in you because I believe in me.

I love myself because I love you.

And I have to say, I love my stretch marks.

I really do love my stretch marks. I call them natures tattoos.

Here are some books that I loved that helped me in my self-love journey. Let me know if you've read any, or which ones are your fav!