I am here

*Content warning: body image 

I'm trying to remember when it all started coming apart inside my head. When I started feeling this way. When I became too aware of my body, of myself taking up space and drawing unwanted attention. When something shifted in a direction that could be labelled "depression" or "anxiety", but often just felt like something broke apart. I have artificially affixed dates to it before when trying to construct a narrative. Maybe it was when I got glasses and could clearly see how I didn't fit. Maybe it was when I had a massive growth spurt and went from a (tall) child to an adult-sized 11 year old. Maybe it was middle school when it became painfully obvious how I didn't fit in. When I started trying to erase myself. Maybe it was always that way.

I have a terrible relationship with my body. I sometimes struggle to explain it. I used to just say I wanted to be thinner, because that was a simple explanation. It made sense. It's not really that, although that is an aspect. It's just that it lets me down all the time in so many ways. Some of which relate to size, but others to my propensity to injuries, to attention from random men, to feeling unfit, to how my clothes fit, to the way strangers push in to my space like I'm not there, to how people I don't know look at me and don't see the reality of the person I am. It's been a problem with physically being. And I picked it apart on small details, just like the late 90's/ early 2000's taught us to do. I wasn't a size 0, my face wasn't perfect, I wasn't that combination of skinny and toned. I never will be those things, and I never really wanted to be. I wanted a body that could do the things I wanted to do, and that would be left alone in public. I wanted to exist without feeling the weight of creepy stares. I wanted to only be looked at if I could be seen. It's never been that I hate how my body looks, but how it feels to be in. 

Oddly, many of my hobbies are physical. Hiking, running, climbing. There can sometimes be a moment where I am doing the thing where I am no longer aware of how awkward I feel in my body. Those are the moments where my brain quiets down and I can actually feel the moment. It's also why I like doing these things alone more often than not. But there have also been many moments (particularly in the past couple of years), mostly when I am with others, when I am painfully aware that I am struggling on a hike, or falling spectacularly, or just generally being failed by my body. Moments that make me want to give up on these hobbies and hide.

It's one of those things that I don't really know what to do with. I have read a lot of body positivity content, but a lot of it makes me feel worse. Because it's not really what I'm getting at. Great if it helps other people, I'm not dissing the whole thing. It just doesn't really apply. I understand that everyone feels the weight of their imperfections. That just isn't really what my biggest problem is. And if I ever try to talk about it, I'm often met with physical compliments, which is also a problem. It's actually part of the whole thing. And it's not like it feel like the wrong body to me, just that it feels weird in the world in it sometimes. Unsurprisingly, at my lowest of lows I took my rage and sadness out on my own body. 

This whole things has been exacerbated by being injured. The dramatic change in my activity level has changed my body. And it was another huge failure. So I have been feeling this a lot more over the past 10 months. And what do I do about it? I'm trying to feel it, to be in it. I haven't dealt with a lot of things, and they like to come crashing back in at inopportune moments. So I'm trying to deal with this one. Honestly, getting a few tattoos helped make my body feel more like my own. Although it brings unsolicited "Hey girl, nice tats" comments. Trying to ease back in to going for walks, to bouldering, hopefully soon to hiking and running seems to maybe be helping. Trying to understand what exactly my issue is. And trying to see how much of it is not my fault.

I got crushed under the weight of a society. And maybe I took it more personally than most, but I can't deny the part it played. Seeing only one type of body being valued. Being surrounded by toxic white masculinity when I started taking my outdoor pursuits more seriously. The things men feel entitled to say to/ about me on public transit, on public sidewalks, in public in general. The judgements from other women on body size and what a person eats. As if you know enough about me to judge. In a homophobic world that made me afraid to be who I am. The things around me that taught me to push down all my feelings. That punished me for being sensitive. I'm done being sorry. I am trying to reclaim my peace of mind, and a piece of myself. I am here, I am a whole person. I'm lucky to have a life, someone I love, and a body that can do the hobbies I love. I'm not interested in feeling bad about it anymore. I am sure it will be a whole "two steps forward, three steps back" start on this road. I'm sure it will be more endless grinding forward. 

That's kind of my purpose with starting this page. To tell more truth and to try to do better. Maybe it will help someone else, maybe it's just self-indulgently assuming I have something interesting to say.