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[ruminationcentral-blog]

you know all those christian songs I was traumatized with? the ones dedicated to God and Jesus?

today I'm fucking dedicating them to myself. I am replacing all the ‘you’s with MYSELF. THEY ARE SINGING TO ME. I WORSHIP MYSELF. 

[ruminationcentral-blog]

BREATHE

today I danced for the first time in a very long time. jumped and lost complete control for a minute, breathless and in love with myself and what my body could do. I used to run, I used to swim, I used to cycle and my parents used to say ‘what an active child you were’ with such dismay as I grew up into my body. Being forced to run, punishing myself with exercise to make myself smaller in order to please them I soon quit doing it after I turned 19, even though I did genuinely used to like it. They didn’t want me to take up space. They were punishing me for taking up space - for being bigger than they thought I should be. 

today is the first time I'm able to fucking laugh about all this, how stupid and how cruel they were - why should I be smaller? why should I force myself into the box they built for me? 

I met my inner child today - she is precious and I want to give her everything she wants and deserves. I deserve to take up so much fucking space. I will not apologize for it anymore. 

[ruminationcentral-blog]

An Ode to my Face

I'm learning how to love my face. My eyes that narrow and disappear completely when I smile. The lilt of my eyelashes at the corner of them. My mouth that seems so inevitably etched above the roundness of my chin. The soft cupid’s bow that sits aloft it, the shadow that forms in the well between my nose and it. My big round nostrils that mark my Taurean bull energy, that allow me the gift of taking in and breathing in deep. My soft, fleshy nose that feels like a delicate mushroom. The cheeks that are always faintly sun kissed, the glow of my skin, the constellations of moles around my eyes, cheek and lips. Moles have always been my favorite part. Maybe because I could at least point to that inheritance from my mother. 

But that’s where the commonalities always seemed to end. I’m beginning to accept that it’s ok. It’s ok that my face looks different than the one that birthed me, that instead of her doe eyes I have asymmetrical ones. I’m learning to love the softness of my edges, the generosity of my features, the slowness in which they define themselves. 

Other people have seen beauty in me and have expressed it, and I’ve never dared to let myself believe them. I’ve never dared to let myself love my face. But now I dare myself to - daring myself to operate as though I were created completely perfect, with nothing to apologize for, with total acceptance of the way I look. 

It is hard work, it is frowned upon, it is laughed at - to love myself. To love ourselves. But as I’ve done in so many other ways in order to survive, as I’ve done in ways I’ve been proud of and have flourished, I will defy every last one of them by shouting it from the rooftops - I Love My Face. I Love My Fat Body. I Love My Wounded, Limping Immune System. I Love My Damaged Pancreas. I Love My Swollen Heart. I Love the Adipose Tissue that lines my chin and neck. I Love I Love I Love myself, I’m the only one who has gotten me this far, who has kept running towards myself, over and over, who has kept trying to save myself and pull myself out from under the wreckage. Over and over and over again, and I will keep running towards myself, keep saving myself, keep pulling myself up into the sky, sinking my feet into the balm of cool clear water and sand, allowing myself pleasure, for ever and ever, Amen.