A Love Letter to my Body

All of us have different relationships with our bodies, but we can all agree that we often take them for granted.

Faye Navesey
30th November 2021
Image @Hannah Buckley

To My Body,

I’m sorry I treated you like the source of all my problems. I felt like you weren’t perfect enough for me to appreciate all you do for me. And whilst I’m still learning how to appreciate you properly, I know now that viewing you as imperfect isn’t a reflection on you, but rather on a culture that values thinness above happiness. It’s a culture I’m still trying to escape from, so I’m sorry about that. I hope this letter serves as a reminder that you are the most important partner I will ever have.

To my fat, I love my body. Not in spite of you, but because of you. You are beautiful and I regret spending all my time and making myself ill trying to get rid of you. I’m afraid you were a punching bag for a brain that was reading about how you were inherently evil and not a natural function of my body. I’m sorry I didn’t see you as beautiful all these years, I’m sorry I deprived my body of food simply because you existed. I’m glad you exist and I wouldn’t change you for the world. I love that I am fat. I love that there are stretch marks on my skin that show how I have grown. Every ounce of fat on my body belongs there because I want it there.

To my boobs, again you deserve another apology. For a lot of my life, you were a reminder that I was fat, that I was bigger than the girls around me. And then as I got older, you were ignored by me and only admired when I wanted men to buy me a free drink in a pub (Yes, Lesbians do this too). Until very recently, I also felt like you didn’t belong on my body because I’m not a woman. But I’ve recently come to realise that I decide what makes me non-binary, and you belong on my body as much as any other part of me does. My identity won’t be invalidated by the arbitrary way we have made boobs a uniquely womanly thing only for the enjoyment of men.

To my hair, I ignored you for so long. I kept you healthy and natural because I thought it was what I was meant to do. But you never felt like mine until I cut you shorter and dyed you a million different colours. Now you’re bleached and damaged beyond repair, and you’re about ten different colours at once because I have no idea how to dye my hair properly. And I’ve never loved you more. I adore waking up to a nest of strangely coloured hair on my head, and I’m so thankful to have you.

For a long time, I didn't feel like my body was mine, it felt like a temporary vessel I couldn’t be happy with until I was thinner and fit into a beauty standard that was impossible to reach. So this is a letter to my body and a way of reclaiming it. My body is fat. My body is genderless. My body has scars and marks. And my Body has a different hair colour every week. But most of all, my body is mine and for that it deserves constant thanks.

Lots of Love,

Faye

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