On Body Image.

Let’s talk about bodies, shall we? Actually, I’m just going to talk about my body and also share some thoughts on self-image that I think are pretty applicable to other people, but I have no idea what goes on in all of your heads, so if I’m totally off base just ignore me, kay? Cool. Here we go.

Bodies are weird.

Like, they’re actually weird, with all the zillions of different parts that do different things some of which are automatic and some of which are only automatic sometimes. Breathing? You can choose not to but also your body will keep breathing if you stop paying attention. That is wild. But it’s also not really what I mean when I say bodies are weird.

They change in ways that are so very gradual that we don’t really notice until later when someone else points it out or when we see an old photo of ourselves. We are in some ways the closest observers of our bodies, but also the people who see ourselves the least. Weird. The way we think about ourselves is influenced, in so many ways, by the opinions we have about our physical appearance and how it compares with others. Of course physical appearance isn’t the only component of self-image; our skills and talents and willingness to embarrass ourselves in front of others and intelligence and all sorts of other things also contribute. But the way we look is pretty much the first thing others notice about us so it makes sense that it influences how we think about ourselves, too.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that many parts of our bodies are determined by genetics. In a lot of ways we just have the bodies we were born with (and some people won the genetic lottery and aren’t even able to get fat or whatever, which really blows my mind) and there isn’t much we can do about it besides get cosmetic surgery. But there are other people (with self discipline that is unfathomable to me) who exercise regularly and slowly get a body closer to what they want. Maybe it’s not perfect still, but they lose weight and tone up and whatever else they need to do to have a body closer to what they want it to be. And I don’t think people ever really “arrive” at their ideal. I don’t think that’s how bodies work. But I also think that’s okay. Maybe nobody is ever completely satisfied with what they’ve got and it’s just part of human nature.

Now for the part where I talk about my own body. It changes a lot. My weight has fluctuated between 120 and 150 pounds since high school. Which is a pretty considerable range, honestly. And what’s especially weird/interesting is that when I’m at my heaviest I usually don’t notice. Isn’t that interesting and wonderful in a way? When I’m my puffiest, “grossest” self I don’t usually look at myself in the mirror and think that I’m fat. I see all the different parts of myself that are the same as always and have the same problems with and praise for them as I always have; my inner thighs touch and I hate it (both because of how it looks and because it is uncomfortable AND because it seriously diminishes how long I can own a pair of jeans), I have hollows beneath my cheekbones that are subtle and often get lost in the roundness of my cheeks when I smile but are definitely there, I have a dimple in only one cheek, etc. It’s only after I have lost weight that I look back at pictures and think, “Wow, I was really pretty overweight, huh? How did I not see it?” Which might be bad in terms of overall physical health, but it also seems pretty psychologically healthy to me. It’s like the exact opposite of body dysmorphia.

Imagine looking at yourself every day and thinking that you look disgusting. And yeah, there absolutely are people who do that, but I don’t think most people do. Maybe I just have no clue. But it seems like even though we totally have things we want to change about ourselves, even when we are trying to lose weight or whatever, we are still usually able to make general peace with how we are at any given moment. Imagine if our self image kept us hiding out in our houses? Yikes.

Bodies are weird. But they’re wonderful. We spend our whole lives inside of ours and still don’t know everything about it. That totally blows my mind.

I started running this spring and my body has changed more in the past five months than it maybe ever has. I remember in high school before I lost a bunch of weight my senior year (my doctor later told me it was because I’d started eating breakfast- go figure) there was this time when I couldn’t find my hipbones. Obviously I knew where-ish they were, but externally you couldn’t find a trace of the actual bone. But then when I lost weight hip bones were visible. I was definitely not one of those people whose bony hips jab out of their jeans, but I could find them when I looked for them.

Anyway, similar things are happening to me now. Running hasn’t made me weigh less, but my body is just different. My legs are super muscular. I’ve always had pretty skinny calves but all of a sudden they are something that can only be described as “shapely.” All my pants are really tight on my calves and my legs barely fit into my boots. There are muscle bulges on my SHINS. I didn’t even know that could happen until now! And my thighs still touch, but they also curve way out in the front, too, because of my new muscles. And I just noticed the other day that I have this weird little hollow in the very front of each of my legs between the hip and thigh. I have no idea what it’s called because I never knew that such a thing existed. And, weirdly, I swear my shoulders are skinnier now. I have no idea why running would make my shoulders thin out but I honestly like them more now than I ever did before. I happened to catch a glimpse of the back of one when I was flexing for something or other and it was surprisingly jacked looking (I think it was kind of an illusion, but whatever). And for the first time that I can ever remember, I can tap my sternum and it makes a hollow noise because I’m actually just hitting the bone without any cushion in front of it (probably it was like that before as well, like when I was really skinny in high school, but I never noticed until this time). And I have quite literally run my ass off; it’s only about half the size it was last winter, maybe even smaller. Yet I totally still have a belly the exact same bulge-y size it was before I started this whole running thing. Cool, body, thank you so much.

Last week I went to see one of my friends play music in Yarmouth and, as I often do when I’ve made plans to go out in public, I wore something that made me feel cool (because dressing for my office job is actually one of my least favorite things ever) and sprinkled glitter on my cheeks and chest (because it’s one of my goals for this year to be more sparkly). Since my purple hair was still pretty fresh and I didn’t trust it not to stain my shirts purple, I wore black shirts all week. The one I wore that night was this floaty-ish shift type shirt I got in Portland, Oregon on my road trip last year. By the time I got home from the gig in Yarmouth everyone at my house had gone to bed and the shower light, which we use sort of like a bathroom night light, was on when I went in to get ready for bed myself. In the semi-dark of the bathroom, I saw my reflection and thought, “wow, I actually look thin right now! I can see my collarbones!” And as silly as something like that seems, I love when my collarbones are prominent. I’ve got a short torso and big boobs, and it’s just a lot going on in a pretty small area, so my collarbones usually don’t stick out and it’s usually not a part of my body that makes me feel delicate. But on that night I did. So even though taking bathroom mirror pictures is kinda trashy, and even though it was terrible photo lighting, I took a picture of myself.

And now I’m going to share it with you all even though the photo quality is dismal and I am making a sort of silly face in it and you can barely even see the collarbones in question.

Because even though the picture didn’t really capture what I was feeling, that was a moment when I looked at myself in the mirror and saw not just what I’m used to seeing or what I’m okay with seeing, but also what I want to see. For that moment, none of the things that usually bother me about my body (and there are plenty of things that do) were visible, and I was left with just loving everything that I saw.

In my experience, those moments don’t come super often, and I think that’s fine. As long as when they do come, we take a minute to just rest in the goodness and appreciate it.


**EDIT: Not hours after this posted, I saw a post on instagram from the poet Nayyirah Waheed that was so intensely relevant. I'll share a screenshot of the poem here for you all, but you can also click on these links to find her on twitter and instagram or buy her books on amazon. She's pretty dope.