No, let's start over,
Dear Me,
Hi. How's it going.
Yeah, you. I'm talking to you.
I know oftentimes I have been a bully to you. I have said some pretty mean things and reminded you constantly of your worthlessness, compared you incessantly to others very much not you. I am really sorry for that. I have spent my whole life measuring you alongside other bodies, taking out my emotional pain on you, despising you for not looking or responding the way I felt you should be, the way others do. I have spiraled into self-loathing because you just don't bounce back fast enough. Your resiliency is slow. You have stretch marks that will never go away, ever. You freckle in the sun and retain pounds in places that make it uncomfortable to wear the clothes I think look beautiful on other women. I am embarrassed to photograph you, because I have created a distorted monster in my mind of how you look in pictures, and how others perceive you.
But, I am the monster. And I have abused you for far too long.
This is my letter of love to tell you, my body, how grateful I am that you are exactly as you are, in spite of my shameless cruelty towards you. You should stand tall, unashamed. You are imperfectly perfect. You are as you have always been, miraculous. Since, the time my mother and father looked on you with the deepest adoration they could hold in their hearts, you have covered and sheltered and protected my soul these past 29 years. You have been bruised and stretched, and broken, but you have grown with me and we have travelled so many miles together and remained whole. You have wrapped your arms around another and he has enjoyed you fully even if many times I have not. You have grown a life, not once, but twice. You cradled my most precious possessions and held onto them when I felt too fragile to accomplish that feat myself. When it felt like the impossible, you were unbreakable, carrying them both until they could breathe on their own. You nourished and sustained them in their infancy, better than anyone else could ever do. You are the only one they will run to when they are feeling sad or hurt. You remind me every day that I am still here. I am wanted. I am beautiful. If even just to them, it is everything and worthy of praise. I would not trade places with any other woman. I want only you, in all of your imperfection. You continue to do incredible things, and I want to wake up every day trying harder to love you more, and take care of you as you have always taken care of me. I will do this because these babies that you have given me need to see how much I love you, and how much they should love their own skin too, breathtaking as they are.
If all of this is not enough some days, and there will be days when it is not, I will fail you again at some point...Please remember that God created you as you are, and loves every inch of you. He designed you to be able to withstand even me on my worst days. I am fighting demons who want to make me forget that. But may these stretch marks, freckles, dimples, and blemishes be a reminder that you are a body well used for His glory, and He honors it by these reminders that miracles still happen. You are loved so infinitely, and blessed. Thank you for being you.
Love,
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