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I grew up in a time where your own reflection was your worst enemy. The mirror only showed the flaws, never the pretty side.

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I will love my body, even when the world shakes her head, even when there are a million and one reasons I shouldn’t, even when I’ve grown tired. Because my body is my home—my dwelling place, my residence, my constant in a world that is far too impermanent. And so, I will live here. I will love here. I will grow here. I will break and rebuild here.

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Things will get better. I wish I could tell you how or when, but that is something that it’s hard even for me. I’m not sure how things will turn, but I promise you that things will get better.

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I am not the fat on my stomach. Or the stretch marks on my thighs. I am not my crooked teeth or less than spectacular curves. I am a soul waiting to take flight, to break through the barriers of who we are told we are supposed to be.

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My body is not a manifestation of my worth, but an expression of my self-love.

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We were created in His image—our bodies, our muscles, our curves, our breasts, our butts, our wrinkles, our rolls, our smiles, our shoulders. Instead of hiding, we should stand proudly and confidently

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Turn that insecurity into your own vitality, not envy nor self-pity.

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The rape shattered how I perceived the world around me: the illusion of safety, my relationship to men and worst of all, my sense of self just as I was traversing the tricky waters of what it means to be a woman in this world. It felt like my wings had been clipped just as I was starting to take off.

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You will never be fat. Yes, you have fat. We all do. But you also have fingers, hair, hormones, and a beating heart.

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I lurch and halt in the pulses of your flares. I want to leap out, climb through the ceilings, press the sun between my teeth but you pull me back, you always pull me back.