a bit of a katie girl.

dear body:

i’m sorry about the cake mix but i just can’t give it up. i know you keep suggesting that i add an egg or some oil…at least a little water, but i can’t give it up. dry funfetti is my refuge and you are just going to have to deal with the consequences. on that note, i’m also sorry about the spoons full of peanut butter, the boxes of girl scout cookies, the giant bowls of pasta, the liter and a half of red wine per weekend, the greasy chinese food from that little place on seventh street, the death-by-chocolate, and the cheese sandwiches with no bread.

i’m sorry that despite feeding you all of this garbage i still wake up expecting you to look great. i’m sorry i take it out on you when my pants don’t fit and when i huff and puff my way up the 13th street hill. i can’t help but wish you had an abnormally high metabolism. or that you had not missed the class in junior high on how to starve yourself. i wish that you were the kind of body that couldn’t eat when it was upset. instead you face plant into a pan of brownies. and i really don’t like that about you.

do you know what else i don’t like about you? i don’t like that you grew such small breasts. that really pisses me off. in a world full of d cups, couldn’t you have at least worked your way up to a b? that would have been nice. instead you have the weight distribution of a butternut squash. i also can’t stand how your hair is always frizzy. how it never quite manages to be straight or curly and instead exists in this weird place that can only be called…ugly. i hate your toenails too, body. i hate that the left one fell off last summer at yellowstone national park and that when i should have been watching buffalo and geysers i was obsessing about whether or not people noticed how weird your feet looked.

and don’t even get me started on the stretch marks. why, oh why, do they have to zig zag across my stomach like perverted lightening bolts? why do i feel like hester prynne every time i have to change in front of anyone? here they are! my very own, personal scarlet a. except instead of a it should be b. for broken heart. or ben and jerry’s. for the sixty pounds i gained after i got my heart broken. for the scars i will always carry with me from the food i couldn’t stop eating because i wanted to fill myself up. because i needed the empty space left inside of me to have something real in it again.

and on that note, body. why do you have such a breakable heart? why do you let other people take a hold of it and smash up and why do you offer it up still? why did you let it keep going back and back and back and back and back to him until we were no longer recognizable? what ever happened to we? because i think the biggest problem, body, is that you are you and i am me. we stopped being us a long time ago. he took that away. and i let him.

he made you feel worthless and sinful. he told us we were wrong to want him. he shut you down and left you wanting. he did that to me too. i pulled myself apart and then did it again. i had to rethink, renew, relive and recreate my life. and i did. and i am here. and i am wonderful, brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous again…i wish you would be that with me. i feel you sometimes underneath the dregs of that long-ago failure. stirring. begging to be freed. how can we do that again? how will i find you? who is going to save us this time?

maybe me. maybe me and you. maybe its about putting our neuroses and the past behind. maybe it is about taking down the last picture. about looking ahead and seeing you as part of that vision. about reclaiming the us and refusing to settle for anything less than being completely healed. maybe it is about making room for god or buddha…karma or fate. or even just a little more of that inspiration stuff. we’ve got to start moving forward because we cannot keep looking back. we’ve got to reclaim what was ours all along. self-love. dignity. laughter. strength. courage. and the pure unadulterated joy that comes from knowing you are exactly where you are meant to be.

dear body, i’m promising you today that i’ll be better. and well i’m at it, thank you. because no matter how much weight you are carrying you still get me up everyday and put one foot in front of the other. and i’d like to think you instinctively protected me when i was hurting by insulating my heart. you can still run a mile, body. you can still toss a log. you still get up everyday and try, and i love that about you. we’ll get there body, i promise. but i don’t think it will look like either of us expected it to. so if you’re ready for that, i am too. and i promise that, for us, the best is yet to come.

ellen.

author’s note: this entry is in response to blogher.com’s request to write a letter to your body. i wrote it quite awhile ago and have been debating whether i should put it up or not…but here it is. in all its glory. so enjoy. i wish you all courage and success in your own battles with self image.