It's been one week since I last wrote for this blog series. I expected to pop this blogs out at a much faster pace, but much like my song writing, my blogs have to ask me to write them when they are ready to be written. If I force them to my schedule, to my timeline, they are crapy.
Why this blog on body issues involving love has waited a week, until I am struggling on one hour of sleep and really bad allergies, is beyond me. But the blog has asked me to write, so as tired (and possibly irrational) as I curently am, I am certain of what needs writen and that it cannot wait.
And what must be writen must include that I was up all night, in part due to allergies, and in part due to love. Due to my need to believe in love, to believe in its power, to believe it exists, to believe it is possible to have again in my life.
Earlier this week a friend texted me :
"I think I'm feeling whatever the stage before feeling lonely would be called. Can you think of a good name for that?"
My response: "Depleted of meaningful human connection"
My answer came quickly, because I was feeling the same. And not in a I need some time with friends way, but in that deep I can trust this person with body and soul way.
I remember that feeling. That feeling of wandering through life feeling alone and broken, unlovable, a monster of some kind. Unrequited love, and crushes on best friends that could never be more seemed my constant companion, until I freed myself to Pursue love, where it was possible to be loved back.
That was when I met her, and I instantly trusted her with every piece of me, and I didn't regret it, because I knew she could be trusted, and for a moment I felt whole, seeing myself through her eyes. She didn't find the things I hate about my body distasteful or ugly. She saw beauty in me, and I saw it in her.
Ultimately things fell apart though. For many reasons. But a small part of that, I think was that she could never quite see herself and her beauty through my eyes.
Skinny shaming and fat shaming are both things I have experienced in life. Both are horrible, and both cut deep and feed into shame cycles and focus the mind on how we should be, and away from loving ourselves as we are.
I have always said, when it comes to size the only question that really matters is "am I basically healthy?" Whatever size shape or weight you may be, if the answer is yes, love yourself. If it is no, love yourself and find out what you can do to be healthy, and get some support and patience while you work to get there, because healthy can't be rushed to over night.
As I've gone through life though, I find it's sometimes harder to believe that healthy is all that matters than I would like it to be.
And even though I believe love has the power to do a great many things, I no longer believe it can overcome all things because I was half of a pair that I know loved eachother deeply, but had to let go and move on because physical and mental disturbances in the force forced us apart, and because I loved her so much and I loved me so much, it was more important for us both to be healthy than together.
And skinny shaming for one became inadvertent fat shaming for the other, and I no longer saw my beauty through your eyes, and you couldn't for a moment see yours through mine. And we were broken. But I stepped away whole, and I am glad to not go back to that dark and hopeless place from before I met you, where being loved as my whole self was never even possible. It was possible once, so it can be possible again, I just haven't met the person it's possible with yet.
I talked to a great many friends in preparing this blog series. Married, with boyfriends, with long life histories, full of the ones that body shamed, from a place of fear driving you to unhealthy reactions to obtain a look. And to those helping a loved one recognize unhealthy habits, and hope they change because you love them so and don't want to be robbed of your love.
Our histories, our families, our culture have all played a roll in how we see ourselves, how we see eachother, and when and how often we feel we can be loved truly and deeply, as we are. I will save most of that for another blog.
But as it's is now officially pride month, I will leave you with a quote from an article I read recently:
"There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist?” - Junot Diaz
To see ourselfs portrayed in movies, books, tv, and song, to see ourselves in celebrity couples and ordinary people around us, those like us in the ways we have been taught are unlovable, to see people like that, being loved, being reflected before us, can give is hope that we are not broken and unlovable monsters.
To meet that person who sees your beauty, and to alow yourself to see it through them, even if you are only with them for a moment can change you for a lifetime. The opposite can also be true, even if you have all the self confidence in the world.
One of the greatest gifts of growing up Mormon was the BYU movie Jonny Lingo. It's great if you've never had an Island of people and your father constant taunting you with chants of "Mahana, You Ugly!" Day and night, and I don't think Mahana just needed a man to rescue her. But I think she did need a human to connect with that saw and loved the real her. It wouldn't have lasted long term if only Johnny saw that, and Mahana never came to see it for herself. But, because she met Johny, and she was ready to believe it, she became her true self.
Hopefully, this all makes sense. As I said, I'm going on one hour of sleep. Sneezing and a dry throat may have kept me up all night, but also the need to see a reflection of one of those power couples that I can see a reflection of myself in kept me up, fueling my hope to not give up on love, not yet. Love myself, and keep connecting with humans. Lots of them will just be friends, but someday, I will me another one, that's a little bit more. That just helps me see and be fully me, because they see and fully love me, and I them.
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