THIS BODY HAS CARRIED ME

My relationship with my body has not always been gentle.

I don't think that's unusual.

Women learn early how to examine ourselves.

We know which angle we prefer. Which jeans make us feel smaller. Which part of our body enters the room before our confidence does.

We know how to stand in front of a mirror and find the one thing we wish were different.

I have done it too.

And then one day I had a thought that stopped me.

This body has carried me through my entire life.

These legs have taken me places I once only imagined going. These arms have held people I love. This chest has risen through fear, laughter, grief, desire and every ordinary breath in between. This skin contains every version of me I've ever been.

And yet I have spent so much time asking it to become something else.

I'm softer in places I wasn't before. There are things that have changed. There will be more changes.

I'm beginning to understand that aging isn't my body betraying me.

It's evidence that I've been here.

Living. Loving. Working. Breaking. Healing. Becoming.

There is something beautiful about treating your own body tenderly without waiting for it to earn that tenderness.

Warm water. Oil or lotion slowly rubbed into your skin. Fresh sheets. Standing barefoot in the sun. A dress that moves when you walk. Sleeping when you're tired. Touch that doesn't ask the body to perform.

These things feel different to me now.

Less like indulgence. More like gratitude.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life negotiating with the vessel that made my life possible.

I want to live inside her.

Completely.