hey you! thanks for being here. before you read on, I want to let you know this has sensitive content – mention of eating disorders, unhealthy beauty standards and harm. also includes healing, self love and hope.
those messages embedded in our heads from media such as America’s Next Top Model (damn, that show was so incredibly toxic back then), magazines, and more… whew. I definitely have my privileges as a white able-bodied cis woman who fits the general conventional standards of beauty. I did not think so for a very long time. body dysmorphia is real and so disorienting but that’s another conversation! the truth is clear – so much harm was and still is perpetuated by idolizing and glorifying certain body types, race, and et cetera… another wretched system of white supremacy many of us continue to try to unlearn, but beauty is EVERYWHERE in so many forms, ways, and layers, and I feel this in my core.
none of us are immune from self destruction, but none of us are immune to self-love, either. and I wish for that growth and self-love for all of us, because we are each stars in a galaxy… unique and beautiful in our own ways. And I know I’m not alone. I hope this inspires even one person, because it is a long, hard process, and it’s not as easy as unplugging or letting go for the roots remain. but change in mindset is possible and will come into fruition only if you believe in yourself. shall we never let go of the shine we all always hold. sending lots of love to y’all!!
women, I love y’all. happy women’s history month. to all humans, I’m rooting for y’all too, and all of you are stars.
original written #brinktober:
Thinking about this brings this feeling… I don’t know. The whole notion of our existence, of our entire abstractness, confined in a cage. I used to refer to our physical entities as cages, often, you know. What throbs and lives and digests and survives – all soft, all pink, fleshy – protected by nests and formations of bone. As I type away I feel more on edge, slightly dizzy. Because it was a bone castle I used to want to reach. I wanted to suck any visible fat away, remove any excess skin and hair, and just feel the bone as much as I could. Feel the smoothness, the corners, the sharpness. Hardness. I craved it, hungered for the skeleton, to be closer to death than life, but still with breath.
Thinking about that time of my life brings me a strange kind of emotion, like an old childhood story, but I know it is still the reality of many. How ridiculous, but how real, how human. How could we not crave what we’ve been taught to feel? The thinner, the better? To model those mannequins, to yearn for a body with nothing but the outlines of our insides? I feel goosebumps. A slight itch on the bottom of my foot, a slight reminder from my bladder. All those motions, all those feelings, of the body being alive. What about that?
Why are we not taught to crave feeling human, with the tickles and the feeling of a full stomach, the excitement of a cold breeze, a warm bath, and the sounds that travel out of us? The gifts our bodies have given us? Bless our vessel, a ship which gives us the ability to taste, breathe, and live. Our bone cage is a vital part, only to protect, to help us survive, and ultimately to ensure we are never forgotten. Do your bones stop changing as long as you are alive? No. The body continues to grow. Our bodies break and age. The bones reform and adjust. They may worsen. Remodeling, shifting. Always.
Your entire body is alive. You must take care of it. You are composed of stardust, and you are also made of your spirit. Treat your entire being well, love. Be your own backbone, for this precious life, for your precious self. Be so until you’re laid to rest.
For after everything rots and melts and is eaten away, and after your soul breaks free, the only physical reminder left of you will be the bone castle, the cage, that protected you.
