Dear Body,

You’ve been through hell, and much of it has been my own doing. I’ve berated you for having normal folds and genetic dimples, starved you of joy and freedom, forced you into a tireless routine, then wondered why I was so depleted. 

And guess what? It was never enough.

You’ve always been labeled “skinny,” and at times you’ve been deemed underweight, especially when battling mental health struggles and autoimmune flares. But I didn’t support you through them. No, instead, I kicked you while you were down. I rejected the idea that you were healthy, because you didn’t look like the women on my TV screen or in the magazines or on my Instagram feed.

It’s ironic: Just like you, I overgive, I bend, I break, I burn out, I exhaust myself to the core, just to feel like I’m enough for the people in my life. Craving appreciation and love. In turn, I just end up seething in resentment of my own making, my own habit of self-neglect.

You reflect the same story—the same pattern. No matter how hard I push you at the gym, how much weight you lift, how many miles you walk, how much yoga you do, I never deem you worthy of love and acceptance. I still stand in front of the mirror and pick you apart. The sun is a spotlight through my skylight, illuminating your imperfections, highlighting what I believe needs to be hidden.

I scour the internet for ways to “solve” an issue that doesn’t need solving, as if you are the issue itself. As if you haven’t carried me through both the darkest and the brightest periods of my life. As if you haven’t fought an autoimmune condition, powered through mental health struggles, and allowed me to be present for loved ones.

You dance to Life is a Highway with my nieces and nephews. You walk the beach on summer vacation with my teenage cousins. You lie under the sun with my mom while chatting about life. You bleed passion into the stories I write. You stroll downtown for ice cream with my dad after a steak dinner. You grow stronger at the gym. You make love beneath the moonlight. You speak gently to me, and a bit more sternly when I’m not listening.

After Years of Criticizing My Body, I Decided to Thank It Instead

This upcoming week, you’ll hug my mom-mom and pop-pop on their 70th wedding anniversary—and you’ll eat pizza surrounded by your loved ones without guilt. Maybe that voice will be there. The nagging, loathing one. I want you to know that isn’t my voice. Not anymore. It’s the echo of a million other humans trying to feel safe in their own bodies, the very ones we’ve been conditioned to reject. It’s the industries we continue funding with our own panic and self-rejection.

I don’t dare view any other body through such a hypercritical lens. Nor do I ever stop to thank you for all you allow me to be present for. Birthdays and career advancements and weddings and dinner dates and ocean dips. All you’ve fought, like body dysmorphia, heartbreaks, OCD, sexual assault, and chronic illness. Yet you’re still here. And because of that, I am still here.

I’m so tired of hating the very reason I am able to taste life so intimately. I’m so tired of shaming the vessel that holds my spirit. I am so tired of depriving myself of pleasure while I’m still around to experience it. What a privilege it is to have a belly full of food, muscular legs to carry me through the days, strong arms to hold my loved ones. And how dare I shame that very privilege?

I’m sorry for labeling you a problem to fix, a condition to manage, a burden to shed, when all along, you were offering me life. I think it’s time we actually live it, freely, together.

Thank you for all that you do.

I love you.