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