Every so often, in a moment of self-reflection spurred by stagnant time or boredom, I realize that I was given this body. Without being too scientific, I was given this body by a man and a woman whom I’m very lucky to wholeheartedly believe were very much in love.
When I consider myself, I often concentrate on my mind. That is where I live — in my thoughts and emotions, in my subconscious, and I devour the world through a kind of personal lens that is sometimes cathartic but, more regularly, absurd. I do not claim that it is healthy to always live within the mind. But I do. It is what I know.
I often forget that I am also defined by my body. That life consists just as much of steps and blinks and rolled eyes as it does confusion and passion and excitement and despair. I firmly believe that without the body, the mind would have no way of evincing itself. It is pointless to be angry without being able to yell. To punch the air and cuff the ceiling and be as loud as one can possibly be — because when one is angry, they must show it. They must do all they can to say: “I am angry. Hear me. Listen to me. See me.”
It is utterly more depressing to be depressed when you’re unable to cry. How oddly precious it is to feel salt water drip down your cheeks. Why be happy if you cannot smile? Why be amused if you cannot laugh? Why be relentless and fervent and educated if you cannot debate? The mind is enlivened by the body. How lucky I am to leave my body’s inner workings to the subconscious, to underappreciate what I can do, to know nothing about living in a skin that doesn’t work.
Yes, I think more often of my brain than my anatomy. But I degrade my body much more than I degrade my mind. Rarely do I look at myself in the mirror and think I look pretty. I see my bones and my hairs and my limp leg where the muscle atrophy from my torn ACL so cruelly persists. I compare. I take my pointer finger and trace it down the bridge of my nose. I put my hand on my belly after a large meal, and I joke, swaddling the underside of my tummy as though I’ve begun eating for two. How universal it is to look at ourselves in self-loathing and believe that everyone else must think the same thing. When I joke, I make an announcement. I tell you I am aware — that I know my imperfections. Maybe then, I will save myself the embarrassment. Confidence from self-deprecation. Is that a thing? I’ve asked so often that it become one.
Some of the qualities I like about my body are ones I have changed. I like my hair. I get it cut and colored. I like my cheeks. I paint them with rouge and liquid sparkles. I like the muscle on my biceps. I use the arm curl machine. (But if you read this and you see me in the flesh, just know I’ve taken about a two-year hiatus from the gym. I’ll be back soon. At least, that’s what I tell myself).
I don’t like all parts of my body. I wish I did. I don’t know that I will ever like all parts of my body. But the parts of my body I do like are often born from insecurity, from time and growth and change. They are founded on quick-fix makeup products and online trends. They require pimple ointments and skin tints and crossed fingers.
I like my body for its appearance. I dislike my body for its appearance. I love my body for its expression — for its grace and its incompetence, its strength and its cowardice. In my body I am free. I can be weird. I can skip, and prance, and click my heels, and slide down hallways in slippery socks. Without my body I cannot feel.
I live in a body given to me by two people, two people very much in love, two people whom I love very much. I live in a body that isn’t perfect according to Instagram pages and trashy register-line magazines and no-good-too-picky-immature boys. I live in a body that is mine.
I suppose this is less an opinion than it is a plea for acknowledgement. I wrote this because, in varying ways, we are all cuffed and curtailed by our appearances. And while these standards affect us all, women seem to face them rather outwardly. The rage, expectations, emotional complexities, and injustices that women and our bodies face are inescapably linked to cruel realities: to the Cornell Seven, and Dobbs V. Jackson, and “childless cat ladies,” and the Facebook Files, and Erika Kirk’s “submission is empowering,” and #MeToo, and any number of other systematized imbalances with women as their targets.
Roxane Gay wrote in her book of essays, Bad Feminist, “There are times when our bodies betray us or our bodies are betrayed by others.” I am lucky enough not to know body dysmorphia or anorexia or other physical-related mental health challenges in the same way many people do. I cannot pretend I understand it. But I do know about being a woman, about looking at yourself a little harder, a little slower, a little more critical. There is something so universal about womanhood and aspect: that our beauty is inherent to our value, our capability, and our service to the world.
Amidst this chaos, I believe, wholeheartedly, that our body serves for more than the ingrained, methodical ideas we are taught to accept. I am here, and I live wholly, unabashedly, curiously, and irregularly not just through my mind, but through my body. Through the one I’ve been given. The one I was gifted. The one that is imperfect. But also the one that I receive, that I accept, that I love.
~ Maya Corrie `29
Be First to Comment