We're fast approaching the season for new years resolutions, gym memberships, starvation, and self-flagellation, so before we get to Jan 1st, I want to get this message out there.
There is no shame in trying to improve yourself.
I do want to stress, however, that when you make your new years resolutions, it is important that you come to those decisions out of a place of love and not self-hatred. (I'm particularly focusing on the dieting and the working out frenzy that inevitably occurs, but this applies to everything--to school, to your career, to your relationships, etc.) I have struggled with body image most of my life, and I will tell you this: even at my thinnest (160 pounds in college, whereas now I'm around 215), and my stomach was flat, and I had no back rolls, and I had a thigh gap, I was still unhappy with myself.
I was starving all the time, and sleeping 2 hours a night. I was losing hair and bleeding from my gums, and I stopped getting my period from the sudden weight loss, and still I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough. I was never fast enough, strong enough, muscular enough, athletic enough, even when I was swimming sub 7 minute five hundreds, which was something I never thought would happen, even when I was playing water polo, even when I was able to really run a full mile, and do handstands--I was never good enough for myself. The self-hatred would have been impossible for me to shed. In fact, even when I was diagnosed with cancer, I hated my body. I felt that it was a traitor--that for some reason it kept holding me back and this weakness--this cancer--was the final, bitter betrayal--a mere 28 years of mediocrity before biting the dust. I felt that my soul and my heart and my brain deserved a better vessel. But then, I started undergoing treatment, and I watched as my body became the only protection for my soul and my heart. My body is the only anchor for me to this plane of existence. My body is my vessel, and it, in all of its fat and jiggliness, in all of its aching joints, and imperfect skin, in it's thinning, stubbornly straight hair, in its fat calves, and flat feet--it fought tooth and nail to keep me here. I watched chemotherapy cut through my cells. I puked blood. I watched as my white blood cell count dropped precipitously. I shed all of the hair. I closed my eyes and huddled in bed and my mind and my heart surrendered to death, but my body did not give up. My body refused to die. Yes, it is fat. Yes it is old and sore and I take way too much Ibuprofen, and I have to ice my knees and shins multiple times a day. Yes, I now need 9 hours of sleep a night instead of 4, and even then I still have to snort espresso beans to wake up. Yes, I may never be as strong as I was at 18, but this vessel of bones and muscle and sinew is the only home I've got.
I was starving all the time, and sleeping 2 hours a night. I was losing hair and bleeding from my gums, and I stopped getting my period from the sudden weight loss, and still I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough. I was never fast enough, strong enough, muscular enough, athletic enough, even when I was swimming sub 7 minute five hundreds, which was something I never thought would happen, even when I was playing water polo, even when I was able to really run a full mile, and do handstands--I was never good enough for myself. The self-hatred would have been impossible for me to shed. In fact, even when I was diagnosed with cancer, I hated my body. I felt that it was a traitor--that for some reason it kept holding me back and this weakness--this cancer--was the final, bitter betrayal--a mere 28 years of mediocrity before biting the dust. I felt that my soul and my heart and my brain deserved a better vessel. But then, I started undergoing treatment, and I watched as my body became the only protection for my soul and my heart. My body is the only anchor for me to this plane of existence. My body is my vessel, and it, in all of its fat and jiggliness, in all of its aching joints, and imperfect skin, in it's thinning, stubbornly straight hair, in its fat calves, and flat feet--it fought tooth and nail to keep me here. I watched chemotherapy cut through my cells. I puked blood. I watched as my white blood cell count dropped precipitously. I shed all of the hair. I closed my eyes and huddled in bed and my mind and my heart surrendered to death, but my body did not give up. My body refused to die. Yes, it is fat. Yes it is old and sore and I take way too much Ibuprofen, and I have to ice my knees and shins multiple times a day. Yes, I now need 9 hours of sleep a night instead of 4, and even then I still have to snort espresso beans to wake up. Yes, I may never be as strong as I was at 18, but this vessel of bones and muscle and sinew is the only home I've got.
Maybe you won't understand this. Maybe it's impossible to understand something like this until you experience something as humbling as cancer. But I implore you, when you make your resolutions, make them out of love.
Do not hate yourself. Do not hate your body. It's the only home you have.
