Dear Body,I feel as though I owe you an apology; it is long overdue, but I’m here now, hoping that it’s not too late for a little forgiveness.
Even though you are what enables me to live and to move through the world, it seems only recently that I’ve been especially aware of you. I’ve harbored nasty feelings toward you, I’ve abused you both verbally and physically, I’ve shut you up and ignored you, chained you to a pipe in the basement and padlocked the door.
I remember the first time I was shocked into an awareness of you at the age of thirteen at summer camp, when I first passed through that bloody rite of womanhood. It was a sunny Sunday morning in July. I was wearing a polka-dotted bathing suit, on my way down to the lake to go swimming and had stopped by the restroom; that’s when I noticed. I had been educated on the matter as a fifth-grader, and I knew as much about it as a twelve-year-old could, but it still came as a terrific shock to my system. I cried and cried and cried that morning in my bunk bed, my face puffy and wet, words coming out in chokes and gasps. My counselor told me this was a beautiful gift from God, that it meant I was a woman now. But her saying that made me want to scream and rip out my hair. I didn’t know why, I just hated it.
And then things really started changing: my child’s body began to change shape without my willing it, malleable as Play-Doh without my consent. My straight, hipless form bloomed outward and pulled inward in places. My lithe form began to puff out, acquiring pounds that seemed to come from nowhere. I felt as though you had betrayed me. The child’s body was something I knew and could navigate, this new thing was foreign to me and I was trapped in it. You held me hostage.
With the added pounds came the teasing and taunts of others. I drew inward and loathed this mess of flesh I was trapped in. I was powerless to escape it and so I told you things like: you’re fat and nasty. People hate you and so do I. It would be better if you were skinnier. Lose weight, damnit!
And I continued to abuse you with my words and my thoughts. I would look in the mirror and point out all your flaws, tell you to shape up, that you were no good as you were.
Finally, I had had enough and the abuse turned physical. I started memorizing food labels and adopted a plan to get you to where I thought you needed to be. I’m in control now! I’m the boss! I restricted calories and nutrition, I put increased physical demands on you. As the puffiness diminished, as pounds evaporated, the compliments poured in and I was addicted to them. I ate them instead of food and exercised even more, feeling proud of myself for starving you. I had taught myself to love the growling in my stomach, and I chased after that emptiness more and more.
Even when others said you’re getting too skinny, I thought only of how to get skinnier, of how to make sure you really knew that I was the one in charge here. You would not hold me hostage again. The goal was always that I’d strip you of five pounds and when that was achieved, it would be five pounds yet again. And eventually my periods stopped and I could pull my tiniest pair of jeans up and down, up and down while they were fully buttoned and zipped. I felt so proud. I had tamed you.
And then came February 22, 1996, a day tattooed in my memory, a day that took us both by surprise. It was my senior year of high school and I had so much going for me. That car accident changed everything. I was only a passenger, but life changed for you in the instant that the brakes locked and that hunk of metal slid at fifty miles per hour across slick wet pavement, colliding into another car.
You hurt like you had never hurt before. I took you to the chiropractor, the massage therapist, the neurologist, the physical therapist. The pain would not stop. I lived in those doctors offices and the neck brace became a regular part of my attire until I forgot what I looked like without it. I adopted a new vocabulary, one that included phrases like soft tissue, nerve damage, and it would have been better if you had broken your neck. You and I hurt so much and we both learned to go numb.
In college the pounds came back on slowly and I let them return to you a few at a time, but begrudgingly. I was too worried about academics to concern myself with making sure I maintained a vigilant watch over you, to make sure you didn’t get out of line. But this is where I learned new ways to push you, like staying awake when you pulled me toward sleep, ingesting cup after cup of cheap black coffee heavily syruped with sugar.
I skipped meals, always reasoning that a few more minutes of study were more important than giving you those things the cafeteria attempted to pass off as food. I asked you to keep going, keep moving, keep running and denied you regular fuel. And then I’d get angry with you and call you names when you got sick or tired or achey or were sapped of energy. I berated you again and again, demanding health and energy and wellness even though I gave you nothing to work with.
Then one night my heart began to rebel, racing at several hundred beats per minute, startling me from a still sleep. The episodes continued for months and no one could find out what was going on inside you. The doctors pressed you, poked you, probed you, took blood. No charts or graphs or books could explain why you did this. Nothing changed until hands were joined in a circle around me, hands put on you, and healing called down from heaven. There were no more episodes after that, and you became a testimony of something divine reaching down to earth, touching flesh.
I began to feel differently about you then.
I felt like we got healthy after college was over when I was on my own, giving you lots of vegetables and fruits and lean proteins, exercising in a healthy way, giving you what you needed to assume a healthy shape. I felt really good, and was pleased that our relationship had improved. And then a few years ago, new things started happening that no one could explain. My stomach was stabbed with pain, and my chest burned. Several rounds with several different medicines didn’t help and we had no relief. Things escalated and got worse, and I took you to the emergency room more than once.
The ache moved down my gut. I grew sluggish and tired, fell asleep too early every night. Doctors wanted to give you vicodin and anti-depressants, but I refused. I was trying to help you and I knew innately that you did not need those things. I didn’t know what you needed, but I knew that vicodin and anti-depressants weren't the answer. I sometimes felt like you were a squealing infant and I was the parent, not knowing what you needed, not knowing how to understand where you were hurting and why. I felt so helpless. We were both trapped, chained to each other in the dark.
It took awhile, but I finally found someone who could teach me how to listen to you, who helped me learn to hear the things you were saying. In the process, I discovered other parts of you that suffered quietly: blood cells, bones, thyroid, adrenals. I learned what things were hurting you and I took them away; I got supplements to provide what you lacked, to aid in healing those places you suffered most. You had been hurting so long, and the healing is still happening. I can’t imagine that either of us will be quite the same again. But we are here now in a new normal that is healing and energized and as it should be.
So my body, I’m sorry I ignored you and said unkind things. I’m sorry for having neglected and abused you. I’m sorry I hurt you and starved you and asked impossible things of you. I’m sorry for the pain you’ve suffered, that we’ve suffered together.
We are married, you and I, and we are still learning to speak to one another, to listen with attentive ears, still learning how to move in this dance we do together. We were knit together inside my mother and we are inseparable, you and I. My mind and heart and soul are fused with you. You are how I hug my sister, talk to my friend, how I laugh and smile. You are how I dance with joy, cry out loud, and how I can write any of this down at all.
You are the first place to which I extend the most basic kindnesses and grace: food, water, rest, exercise. I marvel at your abilities to lift, stretch, bend, heal, and grow strong. You are good from your beginnings, and I am learning to honor the goodness that has been there since the moment you took form.
So I guess what I’m trying to say, body of mine, is that I’m not perfect. I wish I could promise you that I would be good to you always, that I would never transgress against you again. That I would never wish you were shaped differently, or that you weren’t sensitive to certain foods, or that you didn’t have the limits that you do. But you are the only body I have and I’m beginning to learn that you are utterly marvelous and within those limits, capable of so much.
And so I will continue on this path of learning to be good to you: to provide what you need, not demand what you cannot give, to cooperate with you; to listen to you and respond appropriately to the things you say; to give you compassion. And I’m learning that in return, you give me the ability to embody fully the life I’ve been given, to give my own unique shape to love, sadness, happiness, friendship, and faith.
I guess what I’m saying is that I have your back, good body of mine, and that I know you have mine; that we will learn this dance together, giving one another grace for the journey.
confession photo by kirsten.michelle
Linkage love {check out links to this post}:
pain in the neck (and back) by betsy
there's something about belonging by miriam
