At All Times, I Am Aware of My Body
All my curves and all my edges.
At all times I am aware of my body.
The way it stretches when I stand, the roll of flesh over my waistband when I sit. I pull my pants up higher, over my navel, to conceal it. I sit with a pillow across my lap to disguise it. I suck in. I feel the sweat that makes its way down my back, the backs of my legs, during especially humid months. The way it causes my hair to stick to my face and neck. The stretch marks on my breasts, the result of weight gained and lost.
There has never been a time I was not aware of my body, both of how I perceived it and how it may be perceived by others. I hold my arms stiffly away from my sides in photos, to minimize the appearance of arm flab; I try to simultaneously roll my shoulders forward to expose my clavicle while keeping them back for better posture. If I go too many days without exercise, I feel as though I can visualize my body expanding, taking up space it does not deserve and should not need. I try to catch myself in the mirror at different angles, calculate the ratio of back fat to waist, if the moles on my skin are unsightly.
Small things that mean nothing to anyone else stick on my mind when it comes to my body: In eighth grade, the most popular girl in school, with her long tanned limbs and shiny brown hair, had bones visible in her hands. To me, those bones made her look elegant, grown-up, and I decided I wanted to see the bones in my hands, too. An episode of Oprah caught on TV the following year, where the multi-millionaire TV determined that your breasts were “saggy” if they could hold a pencil underneath them without it falling. My breasts, large and heavy, have always been able to keep a pencil in place. A bra band snapped made me worry if the perpetrator had felt a roll of fat and been disgusted. An unsolicited hand around my waist led to me grabbing the same area in the shower, testing to see how it might feel to someone else.
My body has long felt like mine and also like not mine.
I have seen it through others’ eyes and tried to examine its defects, its flaws. It’s felt like it’s been for public consumption, the way it has for so many other women. It’s weighed and measured and so often I feel as though I am found wanting. Even when I have sex with my husband, I cannot always stop myself from existing outside of my body, watching it perform. Even in my dreams, I am both the watcher and the watched.
Diary entries from childhood show that I was aware of my body at all times, even then. I developed early and was an anxious, perfectionistic middle child — the ideal ingredients for an eating disorder and a complicated relationship with food and size. Even when my period stopped due to starvation, I longed for the time I could get pregnant. Having that firm, growing belly would be like an excuse to eat whatever I wanted because it would be “for the baby”. A taut tummy that was home to new life seemed much more acceptable than a flabby one, something that thrust forward rather than collapsing in on itself.
I compare myself to other women, to their shapes and sizes, to see how I measure up. It is a constant refrain: Is she bigger than me? Smaller? Shorter? Taller? Prettier? Uglier? Is her nose straighter, her teeth whiter? Are her breasts bigger, her butt higher? I hide myself in pictures, knowing that an unflattering angle will ruin my day, or longer. My wedding photos caused me more anxiety than actually getting married.
My body has been the thing I have been fighting for over 30 years. I cannot remember a time when I felt wholly content in its skin. Five? Six? Thoughts and worries about how I look always trump thoughts and worries about how I feel; there is always space in my mind reserved for them.
At all times, I am aware of my body, of how foreign it feels, and also how familiar. It’s the place I’ve lived in the longest, but how can my body feel like home when I’m constantly tearing down its walls, taking a sledgehammer to its foundation?
Instead of viewing my body as a “fixer-upper” or even giving myself the unattainable “dream home” ideal, I reroute my awareness of my body. I acknowledge my legs, those thighs I hated for so long, and how strong they are, how graceful they can feel. The way they are able to bend, the weight they can carry, how far they can walk, the places they can take me. My arms, my most-loathed limbs, are long. They can reach the high shelves, throw a toddler in the air, cradle a beloved pet. My stomach, the source of so many abdominal exercises and self-punishment, keeps me nourished.
At all times, I am aware of my body. Some days I like it. Some days I love it. And some days I can’t stand to look in the mirror, but not every day.
Not even most days.
