I am more than a body

I am more than a body. 

I try to live by this sentiment.  I try to recognize that my thoughts and words are much more important than my thighs and stomach.  But I look at this girl in the mirror and I don’t recognize her.  Her thighs that jut out and stomach that hangs low.  I hate that girl in the mirror, I mock that girl in the mirror, I scold that girl in the mirror. 

I am more than a body. 

I find myself crying at random times in the day, for reasons I don’t know.  I was sick as a kid.  I was in the hospital for a month with nothing but IVs keeping me alive.  I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink. My mind has long forgotten this incident but my body has held on.  My body still experiences the pain, my body is still fighting against itself.  

I am more than a body. 

I’m trying to let go of the superficial.  Having a body makes that difficult.  I often have feelings that are too big for my body, feelings that want to keep climbing up and out, but my small body binds them.  Suffocates them and stops them from growing.  

I am more than a body. 

I find bodies limiting.  I want to creep into the smallest nooks and stretch to fill an entire field.  I want to take strides that are three blocks long and use buildings as stepping stones.  I want to hide beneath flower petals and fill my hand with a single raindrop.  I want to move with the wind and roll with the sea.  I want to be shape shifting, forever changing, filling up space but never to be seen. 

I am more than a body. 

It’s hard to separate your mind from your body.  Your identity from your body. Your soul from your body.  I forget that this body isn’t mine forever, that it doesn’t last forever like I do.  I’ve noticed that the older I get, the truer cliches become.  Things genuinely do happen for a reason.  The way I am isn’t a random collection of facts, but a perfectly sensical puzzle that I am just starting to put together.  This sadness isn’t random, this anger wasn’t an arbitrary decision made by God or Whoever.  

I am more than a body.  

My body holds my trauma. My body holds my trauma and that’s why she wraps me in layers and makes me feel sick to my stomach.  I want to stop hating my body, but the pain I feel just thinking about it, just talking about it, is what keeps me in my head, is what keeps me at a distance from it.  

I am more than a body. 

I don’t know if this sentiment is true anymore.  I don’t know if I should keep distancing myself from this thing that holds me but I don’t think I should hold it as my one and only glory either. My body has taught me a lot of lessons and insists on teaching me more.  Maybe my body is more a part of me than I thought, maybe instead of detaching myself from it, I should cling desperately and lovingly to it, because one day my body will be gone.  Instead of thinking of the hate I felt for it, I’ll look back on it as a warm, safe space, that carried me through an enriching and nourishing life.  

I am becoming one with my body.  

to the new year

To 2016, 

I’m scared for what you have in store for me this year.  2015 undid a lot of hard work that I had achieved in previous years.  I gained all the weight back, I fell back into my old anxious ways, and I’ve never been more angry or sad.  I want so much, I want to change so much, and the possibility of those goals being reached seem impossible to me.  

I know January 1st is just another day, that I shouldn’t be placing this weight on it, but I want a fresh start, I want to be a different girl than the one I am now.  This girl now isn’t who I am.  I don’t feel connected to my body or my mind, I feel like a stranger, like someone has abducted my soul and now I’m just an empty vessel.  

I want you to bring me so much, I expect so much from you, but you can’y give me anything.  2016 won’t change me, January 1st won’t change me, I have to change myself.  That’s why I’m scared, because I’m not sure if I can change myself.  I’m not sure if I have the willpower, the drive, the passion, the energy. I’m not sure that I care enough about myself in order to save myself.  

This is why I need you 2016, because even though January 1st is just another day, and you’re just another year, you bring me hope that maybe, just maybe I can become the person who I dream about being.  You allow me to dream of a better me, you allow me to think about myself, and you give me the opportunity to change. 

So, 2016, I’m going to take care of myself this year.  I’m going to treat myself right.  I’m going to love myself, feed myself, decorate myself, exercise myself, express myself.  I will change, and it might not be by the time you pass or the time 2017 passes or 2018 passes, but I will eventually become the person I dream about being.  Thank you for letting me see that.  

My regards, 

Madison