A Love Letter to My Body

Because it deserves better than what I gave it

I know I was lucky in the early days, to be blessed with a body that was considered beautiful by our culture’s restrictive standards. All of a sudden, at 12 years old, you grew a few inches and turned all my baby fat into sensuous curves.

It was so early, though. I didn’t know what to do with all the unwanted attention from boys. From men.

Beauty threatened your safety, your sovereignty. You didn’t have a choice anymore about who touched you or where. It seemed no one could keep their hands off you and there were so few people who were willing to stand up and protect you.

Thus began our destructive relationship. I started to eat as if eating was a hobby. I wanted to make you unattractive to all the grabbing hands, the solicitations. I wanted to make you disappear.

Of course, it only made them want to hurt you, even more, calling you fat, pig, ugly, thunder thighs.

I started to think you were ugly, too.

The more I tried to control you — make you pretty, make you ugly — the more I lost control. Until one day, I couldn’t even see you, anymore. I didn’t even know you outside of other people’s perceptions of you.

We lived like strangers for the next three decades. I thought one day, I might meet a man who would love you the way I wanted you to be loved. Someone who might teach me how to do it. But that never happened.

Maybe it’s impossible to ask someone to value something that you, yourself, don’t value.

It’s just the two of us now. And I want to know you. I want to love you.

You gave me hands that fly across the keyboard, fast enough to keep up with my thoughts as I write.

You gave me shoulders that have been able to carry the heaviest of loads.

You gave me arms that have comforted and protected the people I love.

You gave me breasts that carry within them the heavy, swaying hope of a world filled with nourished souls.

You gave me hips that have cradled the men I have loved.

You gave me knees on which I have found peace in tortured moments.

You gave me feet that have carried me across the world to the most beautiful places.

If I loved you the way I want you to be loved, I would thank you for that. (Thank you.) If I loved you the way I want you to be loved, I would feed you gently, rest you when you needed rest, honor your needs. If I loved you the way I want you to be loved, I would spend more time taking care of you, I would smile when I look at you, I would touch you with kindness.

I know I haven’t been very good to you, but you have always been good to me.

Sometimes, like with any heartbreak, I wish I could go back and start again. I wish I could have been strong enough not to care what our culture thought was beautiful. What did that even matter?

I wish I could have found my voice earlier, fought back harder against the men who thought they could take from you whatever they wanted. (Not that that was my fault or responsibility. They shouldn’t have done that in the first place, but I wish I could have protected you better.)

I wish I could have found a way to deal with the pain that wouldn’t have hurt you so much.

But things have changed. I’m older. Wiser, I hope. Wise enough to know I should have loved you all along.

I won’t fail you again, nor wait for someone else to come along and do this job for me. It’s my responsibility to care for you. Love you.

And finally, I do love you. I’m just sorry it took me so long.

© Yael Wolfe 2019

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