Thank you so much for this entry. You are amazing. <3
There were a handful of years before finishing high school but after I'd grown old enough to really be conscious of my body as something other people might judge me on, that I just didn't think about it. I had exams to study for, extra-curricular commitments, friends who wouldn't have batted an eyelid if I'd decided to shave my eyebrows clean off, a mandate from my parents that I wasn't to distract myself from study by dating, and a school uniform to hide behind.
I think I'd spent so long being sure that I could defer it all and pick up where I left off whenever I pleased to become that proverbial swan, that when the real world (university) finally hit, it felt like a terrifying loss of control, even though I didn't really have any at all to begin with. For the first time, I really saw myself. Me, without all those other things that I'd used to define who I was (grades, friends, my uniform, the hierarchy of high school), and all I could think was No. No, this isn't me. I'm so much more than this. I hated being invited to formal occasions, because they involved dresses and heels, and my being afraid to breathe too deep or move too quick until the end of the night in case I drew too much attention to myself, because I rathered they thought I was boring than for them to take a closer look and see something wrong.
A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a condition. Going through that whole process -- the diagnosis, the subsequent surgery, and the scar it left (that has since dulled but which, at the time, terrified me with its fragility and its alien redness) on my body -- forced me to work through a lot of things, slowly but surely, over the past three years. It helped me understand that my body is mine -- not only in terms of what I see when I'm confronted by it, and what I think other people see, but what it actually is: blood and bone and organs, and the outside as only that little part we see. I haven't accepted my body yet, not quite: sometimes someone will look at me, and that will be enough to make me feel ill for the rest of the day. But I've learnt not to fight my body any more. Weight loss won't change my proportions (barrel chest, stubby legs, too-thin arms, large head), my shape (a pear, an almost flat chest), my face (too male). That's just how I'm built. A little unconventional, but nothing wrong with that. In a lot of ways, I'm incredibly lucky. It's more important to me to be healthy now. And there are things inside that I need to change: if someone thinks less of me, it will be more for those things, and not the way I look.
"...friends who wouldn't have batted an eyelid if I'd decided to shave my eyebrows clean off..." Don't you love friends like that? (Even if my best friends claim they wouldn't talk to me if I shaved my head bald and/or turned into a sparkling vampire, I know they'd still love me no matter what.)
(Random, but the fact that your parents forbade you to date to keep you on track in academics sounds kind of nice, in an odd, roundabout way. Sad as it is, I wish my parents weren't as go-with-the-flow lackadaisical as they are.)
Sometimes a bit of a tragedy is what it takes for an epiphany to hit home, and while I'm glad you're better now, I'm also glad you had the taste of that realization that your body isn't everything. I understand the paranoia of people glancing at you, because I go through the fear of judgment like anyone else, but I'm amazed with your calm acceptance for what your body is. You're right--some things you just can't change, and the fact that you've come to terms with your appearance, accepting it for what it is and just living as healthily as you can, it's awe-inspiring.
I just hope you realize, from what I know about you, that you seem like a great person (who can draw a metric fuckton better than I can, haha) I'm thankful I've had the chance to acquaint myself with, if only very briefly. Thank you for sharing so much with me--someone you hardly know--and because I feel like this is in order...
Kurt thinks you're fabulous, and he loves you. (So do I. :D) ♥
There were a handful of years before finishing high school but after I'd grown old enough to really be conscious of my body as something other people might judge me on, that I just didn't think about it. I had exams to study for, extra-curricular commitments, friends who wouldn't have batted an eyelid if I'd decided to shave my eyebrows clean off, a mandate from my parents that I wasn't to distract myself from study by dating, and a school uniform to hide behind.
I think I'd spent so long being sure that I could defer it all and pick up where I left off whenever I pleased to become that proverbial swan, that when the real world (university) finally hit, it felt like a terrifying loss of control, even though I didn't really have any at all to begin with. For the first time, I really saw myself. Me, without all those other things that I'd used to define who I was (grades, friends, my uniform, the hierarchy of high school), and all I could think was No. No, this isn't me. I'm so much more than this. I hated being invited to formal occasions, because they involved dresses and heels, and my being afraid to breathe too deep or move too quick until the end of the night in case I drew too much attention to myself, because I rathered they thought I was boring than for them to take a closer look and see something wrong.
A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a condition. Going through that whole process -- the diagnosis, the subsequent surgery, and the scar it left (that has since dulled but which, at the time, terrified me with its fragility and its alien redness) on my body -- forced me to work through a lot of things, slowly but surely, over the past three years. It helped me understand that my body is mine -- not only in terms of what I see when I'm confronted by it, and what I think other people see, but what it actually is: blood and bone and organs, and the outside as only that little part we see. I haven't accepted my body yet, not quite: sometimes someone will look at me, and that will be enough to make me feel ill for the rest of the day. But I've learnt not to fight my body any more. Weight loss won't change my proportions (barrel chest, stubby legs, too-thin arms, large head), my shape (a pear, an almost flat chest), my face (too male). That's just how I'm built. A little unconventional, but nothing wrong with that. In a lot of ways, I'm incredibly lucky. It's more important to me to be healthy now. And there are things inside that I need to change: if someone thinks less of me, it will be more for those things, and not the way I look.
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"...friends who wouldn't have batted an eyelid if I'd decided to shave my eyebrows clean off..."
Don't you love friends like that? (Even if my best friends claim they wouldn't talk to me if I shaved my head bald and/or turned into a sparkling vampire, I know they'd still love me no matter what.)
(Random, but the fact that your parents forbade you to date to keep you on track in academics sounds kind of nice, in an odd, roundabout way. Sad as it is, I wish my parents weren't as go-with-the-flow lackadaisical as they are.)
Sometimes a bit of a tragedy is what it takes for an epiphany to hit home, and while I'm glad you're better now, I'm also glad you had the taste of that realization that your body isn't everything.
I understand the paranoia of people glancing at you, because I go through the fear of judgment like anyone else, but I'm amazed with your calm acceptance for what your body is. You're right--some things you just can't change, and the fact that you've come to terms with your appearance, accepting it for what it is and just living as healthily as you can, it's awe-inspiring.
I just hope you realize, from what I know about you, that you seem like a great person (who can draw a metric fuckton better than I can, haha) I'm thankful I've had the chance to acquaint myself with, if only very briefly. Thank you for sharing so much with me--someone you hardly know--and because I feel like this is in order...
Kurt thinks you're fabulous, and he loves you. (So do I. :D) ♥
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