It’s March. Spring is starting to peek through the clouds.
I’m trying to move slow. I’m trying to be easy.
I’m working hard just to breathe.
I’m pining for control over my own body,
My autonomy feels out of reach.

I am reminded how I felt at sixteen, when I made the choice to starve.
Then I am reminded of the Palestinian children and men and women,
Dark eyes pleading while they wither away,
Bombs reflected back into our view.
I am humbled.

I am not the same as I once was.
Gratitude exists, albeit forced at times.
Growth and healing is an active choice.
I let myself transform.

My love and I wake in a new city.
Maybe a new country.

Either continental or café,
We enjoy a breakfast with good coffee
and pastries.
The chocolatiest of croissants,
The softest of scones,
and the warmest of waffles.

Then, we go for a walk.
We take our time to inhale the fresh air and
absorb the new city’s noises and
admire its unique architecture.

Our walk ends at a bookstore.
As we wander the shop’s aisles,
the bookstack we carry grows and grows and grows!
My love says, “Yes, of course we can buy them all.”
(We are not worried about the logistics of getting the books home.)
Once the stack is so high that
we can’t see over it,
we buy them all.

On our walk back to wherever-we’re-staying,
we make a pit-stop for takeout.
Most likely Chinese food, but
could be Korean or Indian or poke, too.

Next, but before dinner, is a warm shower.
Rich instrumental music with dissonant harmonies
and bubbly shampoo.
Fragrance-free body lotion and French skincare,
Followed by the baggiest of sweatpants and
an oversized tee.

Now all squeaky clean, my love and I eat dinner
over a grand adventure on a screen.
All snuggled,
we fall asleep before the credits roll.

I was eighteen in my public speaking class, introducing myself as a lioness with a shake in my throat.
She reminded me of my own strength when I needed her most:
When I was dissociating away from my high school relationship,
And dissociating into the arms of an abusive one.
When with ferocious presence I left, and I rebuilt.

When Roe v. Wade overturned and I’m on the phone with a man
He rants about how many women must be so angry,
But doesn’t hear how it made me feel.
When he tells me I’m just like my mother like that’s a bad thing,
With the lioness by my side, I left, and I rebuilt.

With the flesh of my former self between my teeth,
I destroyed and built again.
With the pain of my foremothers suffocated under my paws,
I destroyed and built again.
With screams and aches and roars I didn’t know I had buried,
I destroyed and built again and destroyed and built again.

The blood of self-love drips from my jaw.
The lioness and I are side by side and we are one.
We have found safety at last.

The best day is a slow day at work. The best day is the day that the sun is shining, but it’s not too hot outside. The best day is the first day the temperature drops in September. The best day is the day I can give my baby a kiss. The best day is the day I belly laugh with my best friends until my cheeks hurt. The best day is the day I give my mom a hug. The best day is the day I am loving and kind on purpose. The best day is the day without anxiety; the day I can breathe through it. The best day is the day I start a new book. The best day is the day I finish my new favorite book. The best day is the day I start knitting, and every day I get to since. The best day is the day I get to go on adventures with the people I love. The best day is going to the Atlanta Zoo with my oldest sister and our partners. The best day is that same day, at the zoo, when a lion made eye contact with me (I swear it’s true!). The best day is in Boston, watching the second oldest sister graduate from Harvard. The best day is reconnecting with extended family for the first time in a decade in Boston. The best day is the day I went to the Hozier concert, and I was physically connected to the music and the message more than ever before and everyone in the audience was crying and it was beautiful. The best day is the day I realized my chronic illness is teaching me how to stop and rest. The best day is the day my cat decides he wants to snuggle in my lap before bed. The best day is therapy day! The best day is the day I realized I am healing; my hard work is paying off. The best day is the day I let myself cry in front of someone else. The best day is the day I realize I’m as smart as I think I am and, yes, I can prove it to you. The best day is the day I decide to be brave. The best day is the day I do the brave thing.

I’m grateful for blue skies, warm sunshine, and a breeze that kisses the nose.
I’m grateful for green grasses and rushing creeks and bare feet.
I’m grateful for friends and lovers that grab you by the hand and dance with you.
I’m grateful for their consistent reminders, “You’re safe here. I love you.”
I’m grateful for the forehead kisses my love gives me,
And that he bends down to let me kiss his forehead right back.
I’m grateful for the safety of my home, and I’m grateful for a newcomer’s compliments,
“It looks like a gallery in here!” Thank you, the art is my favorite, too.
I’m grateful, especially, for the rabbit posed in play, a floppy handstand,
That’s been in our home longer than my memories. It’s one of my first ones.
I’m grateful for the way the sun shines into my mother’s bedroom just before sunset in spring.
It bathes the house in gold and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
I’m grateful for the drums that echo in my chest at the concert in Alpharetta,
And the music that reverberates in my bones. I’m grateful to have a body that feels the music.
It’s exhilarating and soothing, an ecstasy I don’t need to swallow.
I’m grateful for cats with soft fur and who love love love ear scratches.
I’m grateful to my body and my brain for giving me the gift of sensation.
Even when it’s too much, or not enough, I’m grateful to be present to feel.

Dear reader,
I still struggle with body dysmorphia.
But in 2021, I started wearing tiny clothes. For the first time ever.
I’ve been many different sizes since my teens, but I’ve always been shaped the same. I was a chunky kid, or a curvy girl. Even in the height of my eating disorder, my bone structure never changed. The shape of my scapulae, the curve of my rib cage, or how close its end is to my pelvic bone’s beginning; these parts of me don’t move, so size didn’t always “fix” things. My fat distribution never changed much, either (hormone problems also contribute to that). I was always a “thick thighs save lives” girl with a big butt, even if there were less adipose cells than before.
I felt deformed. Being raised in the early 2000s, this meant my whole life was a story of “Clothes Never Fit Right”. A story of my mom buying me women’s clothes at age 14 because the clothes my peers wore were too small. A story of being laughed at when I wore low-rise skinny jeans that gave me a “plumber butt”. A story of being called Britney Spears by a classmate because a button-up shirt I wore that day was a bit more form-fitting. (Which is a ridiculous insult, by the way. Britney is a queen.) It was also a story of seeing women being vilified for having a body that looked like a body. Every woman had to be paper thin.
When I was 11, the 2007 VMAs splattered the news with Britney Spears’s performance. My dad nonchalantly said that Britney was “maybe skinny for a mom but still fat for a woman”. He said that to his 11-year-old daughter.
I was insecure for so, so long.
Then comes 2021. After a pandemic shutdown that kept most of us at home for months, I’m an adult. I’m well past the eating disorder. I’ve graduated college. I make my own money. Screw it, I’m now just going to wear what I want. I’m officially not dependent on anybody else.
I wore Aerie leggings with a crop top. This was a new combination for me, and one that was trendy at the time. I was self-conscious at first; and worried about what my mom would think. She never would’ve let me leave the house wearing something like that growing up. I had been wearing the oversized T-shirt and Nike shorts combination for years.
I definitely spent way longer than I want to admit still sucking in my tummy. I spent way longer than I want to admit worrying about the shape of my butt, or my thighs rubbing together.
But it was so comfortable.
So over time, I adjusted.
My belly was out, every curve and line where everyone could see. My butt looked phenomenal. My thighs were being gently hugged by each other and the leggings with every step. Even my back rolls played peek-a-boo if I needed to reach something from a high shelf.
You could see pretty much every part that I’d been forced to hide before. I was the most visible I had ever been.
After a decade of either squishing everything in with Spanx, or completely hiding under a babydoll dress: leggings and a crop top freed me. I finally saw my body in real time. Every soft bit, I knew exactly what it looked like. I knew exactly what I looked like.
It took a while to make peace with certain parts of myself. But I could finally look at every part of me and look at every part put together to form the whole of me and be okay with it. I could finally see me and my body without shame and contortion.
My body dysmorphia is not gone. That part of me may not ever fully heal. But I made progress I’d never made before, because of this. Because of Aerie leggings and crop tops.
This particular method may not be for everyone.
This was the first of many times I’d leave my comfort zone. It definitely felt funny to start. Growth never comes without discomfort.
Looking back now, though, it healed me more than I thought it did.