My body and I have never been friends. For as long as I can remember, the point of a mirror and a scale were to find fault and reasons to criticize myself. My medical charts reporting the various failures of my various systems, same thing.
But my recent colonoscopy and labs are clear: my body is healthy. HEALTHY. For the first time in years. Which unfortunately is more complicated for me than I'd like it to be.
With the healing of my gut has come weight gain. This started happening right away, when I stopped expelling all of my food. (Duh.) With the encouragement of my therapist, I have very intentionally not stepped on a scale at home since March of 2022. At the doctor's office when I must be weighed, I turn around on the scale so I don't see the number.
And then yesterday my doctor messed up and I saw that stupid, stupid number on the scale that gives me such a complex. Friends, I am embarrassed to admit that I freaked the FUCK out. I thought I'd made *so* much progress in separating my worth from my weight and perhaps I have, but to see the number there, quite different from what it was at my lowest, was a challenge. I cried. At home I stood naked in the mirror and berated myself.
I'm ashamed that I would do this to me. My body has worked so hard to claw back to health, after years of being sick and weakened. I want to be grateful. I AM grateful. I am working very hard to remember that my lowest scale number was a representation not of some more virtuous self, but a self who got so sad and depressed that for a while she didn't eat, a self who spent so much time running to the bathroom after meals because of a gut that rejected food, a self who was dizzy almost every time she stood up.
I am stronger now. I'm also more substantial, in every sense of the word. I would like to make peace with that. I want to be friends with this vessel I live in, which carries me from place to place, which brings me pleasure and allows me to love and work and create.
I'm not there yet. I think I am currently at "wary detente, with potential for improved relations." Maybe when it comes to my body I'll always pendulum between fear and Fuck It, and back again, always wanting the middle and never quite getting there-- but still, always trying.
And maybe I can make peace with that, too.
