“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Dear Body,
Last night, while perusing an embarrassing myriad of social media , I came across a truly beautiful photo.
It was black and white.
And the frame captured a woman's body from just above her belly button to just above her knees. A courageous scar noted the arrival her beautiful newborn, also in the frame, asleep between her thighs.
I couldn't actually finish reading the article, though, because I fell asleep, hating you.
I fell asleep hating you, Body, because the woman in that beautiful black and white photo and I share a very similar scar in a very similar place. We both delivered something from our uterus, only, she delivered a beautiful baby. One that will grow beside her. Love her. She will share the love of this child with a partner who loves her and who probably thinks her after-baby body is even sexier than it was before. If he doesn't, then, he's an idiot. I fell asleep hating you because all you and I delivered was a giant tumor, nearly the size of a football. And, when I saw the photo of that tumor, all I could see was a bloody and dead mass where a beautiful baby may have lived.
Granted, we weren't trying to get pregnant but I understand, from your perspective, Body, that you and the other woman's body had been through very similar operations and you'd come out empty-handed. Maybe you thought a baby would have made it worth it.
It took me three days to gather the impetuous to shower after surgery and three days post surgery, I stood in the hospital bathroom, agonizing over how I was going to maneuver through a shower. When I pulled off my gown, and released my hair from it's messy ball atop my head, I stared, in utter shock. Body, you were covered in bruises from needles. Your incision, although expertly drawn, was blotted in red, purple, strange tape and a now ever so slightly deformed stomach as a result of having been stitched up. But worst, and most shameful, was how I felt about you, Body, as housing a woman who has worked very hard to cultivate her femininity. Your breasts- they were swollen and saggy. Your thighs and mid-section were utterly unrecognizable. The saline solution, meds, anesthesia and trauma of having been torn open and sewed back up again made you unrecognizable to me. And it was all I could do, standing there alone, not to shatter the mirror which held your monstered image in to a thousand pieces.
I was ashamed of you.
I was mortified.
I sobbed. And I sobbed and I sobbed.
I've practiced Yoga for many years- this, you, were not the body I'd had just days ago. You were not the body I'd worked so hard to feel comfortable in. Moreover, this disgust for my own body is not what I've fought to overcome for the last few years. This anger towards you is not how I was trained to view you, Body. Submerging myself in to this yogic culture has allowed me the honor and humble support of some of the most brilliant, courageous and beautiful women I've ever met, and I am ashamed of my own shame, now. How could I possibly sit in front of a Yin class as a teacher, now, encouraging women to simply love where they are; to love the mechanics of their bodies and the freedoms those mechanics allowed for? To love every flaw. Every bump, every insecurity? I'd become a fraud in no short time frame.
And, It wasn't enough that you were unable to stand tall, and were now crooked, constipated, unwashed, hairy, sliced open and scarred- but now you were also fat.
It was painful to wash you, Body. I cried in the shower. And, when I got out of the shower and stared at the naked, embarrassing mess you'd become, I cried again. I couldn't imagine that anyone might find me, you, us beautiful again.
Ashamed to be seen in public, at first I refused to leave the house.
And then, I thought about you, Body.
I mean, I really really thought about you.
Mostly, I thought about how brave you are, and have been, when I am not.
And, so, here's the real letter I wanted to write to you. I just needed you to understand some things leading up to this letter.
Beautiful Body,
I am so sorry.
I am sorry for believing that you are anything but strong, courageous, powerful, feminine and exquisite. I am sorry for having believed in this cultural myth that to tell you that you are beautiful makes me vain, shallow and self-obsessed. I am sorry that I have become impatient with you.
I am sorry for not telling you, on a more consistent basis how strong, beautiful and brave you are.
I am sorry that I have depended on the compliments of others, namely men to validate your prowess and strength of being.
You have held this Spirit in the confines of the greatest health. You have supported this Spirit during times of great strife, grief, a broken heart and trauma. And, you have stayed true and sound.
I am sorry for being anything but supportive of you during this trauma.
We do not have a beautiful baby, you and I, Body.
But we have our health.
We are officially cancer free.
And, we have shit to do.
We just got a new lease on life, you and me. And, I'm sorry it's taken such a desperate moment in life for me to truly note your value.
I always thought that someday we'd meet a most wonderful man and that he would love us exactly as and for who we were. I think that since I found it so hard to love you as you are for all of these years, I thought it might help if someone just helped to remind me that they thought you were beautiful.
I am ashamed of this also.
While you deserve the praise of a partner, one who places value upon the curves, bumps, lines and the grey hairs that tell the story of our travels, you ought not to have been waiting for someone else to provide this validation. It should have been me, standing naked in the mirror, praising you for the strength you have provided us.
Every woman deserves a partner who holds her curves as though he holds the love of his life and I'm sorry, Body, that I've caused you to believe that you are any less beautiful because you do not have that.
I am sorry for that moment in the hospital bathroom. That moment, after surgery, when I removed my gown and stared and you in the mirror and only sobbed. Body, I didn't recognize you, covered in bruises, needles, stitches, gauze and tubes. I am sorry I stood ashamed of you. I am sorry I was only able to see the sudden weight and not your brazen will to fight.
I vow to rebuild your strength.
I promise not to rely on another, beside myself, to validate your beauty or strength.
I will never wait for the words of another to validate the breadth of your beauty but when they do, I will believe them.
I promise to take you on many more adventures. I promise to cultivate love for every bruise and for every mark that this experience has left upon you and I vow to note those marks as chapters in this story of your valor, success and perseverance.
I promise to make the love story between you and I a journey told and made accessible to every woman everywhere. I promise this because I understand the love between a woman and her Body, is hard to come by. We have been taught to cautiously proceed. To step, ever so lightly and to quietly brave our stories so as not to cause great commotion. I'm certain we've strayed from the Red Tent and this is just part of my journey back to that place. What we fail to see in this hiding place, is that we are never alone. And if one of us speaks up, so many others are given the platform to do the same.
It is my hope that our shared stories provide safe passage for women to fearless and bravely speak, out loud and out of doors, of those things we've been taught to shun, to hide.
Love and Light Body,
Me
p.s. I promise not to starve you of french fries, bread or real butter out of fear of what others might think of us...or cellulite
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