A letter to my body by Kate P

Dear Body,

Sit down and listen to me for a minute. You’re good at sitting, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.

Pfft…where do I start with you? Man oh man we’ve been together a long time now, and I know you better than the back of my…oh wait, that is you. Oh well, you get what I mean.

I don’t like you. There, I’ve said it. But it’s not really your fault. In terms of what bodies are for, you do an OK job I suppose. Not like top-of-the-class, Masters with distinction followed by a PHd at Harvard and a mention in the New Year’s Honour’s list, but ok. You let me walk, you let me talk, you let me see things without glasses, hear things pretty perfectly. You aren’t broken in any major way. Sometimes you even let me ride a bike. I know you are trying your best day after day, like a little worker bee plugging away at that honey just trying so hard to please their queen, but uh-oh, sucks for you, your queen is actually a bit of a judgmental bitch (its not you, its her – she’s got issues), and nothing is ever good enough. Sorry little bee body.

The thing is, whilst you are doing an alright job with the day to day stuff (pretty bog standard supermarket squeezy honey £1.69), you’ve never let me excel. You won’t let me climb a tree. I love trees. You won’t let me run. I love…ok ok I hate running, but I’d like to be able to in case of emergency. You’re too big and you keep getting bigger. You make me slow and lethargic. You don’t let me keep up with my friends. You don’t really let me dance much any more. You sweat waaaaayyy too much (seriously, please stop this, it’s actually starting to get annoying now). You make me feel like a big lump, and not even a big strong lump that could give someone a good wallop if they needed it, but a big weak and flabby lump that just has to sit and watch whilst everyone else has all the fun. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, body, but you’ll just never be Manuka.

But you are mine, body. And we are in this thing together. So, I need to learn to appreciate you for what you are. You’re still going, you’re doing okay. I should thank you for that.

The thing is, body, that I’ve been conditioned to hate you. The eyes in your head have seen 30 years worth of patriarchal, capitalist, body-shaming, anti-feminist media bullshit. They read too many women’s magazines at far too impressionable an age. They’ve been told that fat is bad and thin is good (but not too thin). They’ve been told that thin is bad and and curvy is good (but not too curvy). They’ve watched far too much TV and too many films that don’t even pass the fucking Bechdel test. They’ve been told that fat women don’t get their own storyline, and as far as romance goes? Ha! Dream on. They’ve seen too many adverts. They’ve been told that women should change their bodies, rid themselves of their imperfections: remove every errant hair and smooth every wrinkle and plump every cheek and lift every sag and tone every wobble and what else? Pay for all of it. They’ve quite simply been told that YOU ARE WRONG. Those eyes may choose not to look at these things now, but the damage has already been done.

So, please try to understand, body, that I don’t choose to hate you. We are both victims of circumstance, really. I’m sorry that I haven’t treated you particularly well. You’ll be pleased to know that the drinking and smoking and partying days are mostly over, so you won’t be hurt by those things much anymore. But I still have trouble feeding you what you need and taking you out for walks and keeping you healthy. The problem is, body, how am I meant to take care of something that I’ve never loved? It’s like having an evil pet following you around your entire life. A little monster that snarls its teeth and kicks you in the shins and trips you up and gives you bloody knees and keeps you hostage in your own mind and threatens to tell the world what a horrible person you are and – I’m expected to love this little fucker? Not only that, but care for it above all else, nurture it, make sure it’s happy, every single hour of every single day this little bugger has to be my top priority and my biggest commitment, because our fates are one in the same? Jeez, body, that’s a fucking tough ask.

But I shouldn’t compare you to a little goblin, really. Especially not when we’ve already clearly established that you are a lovely little bee. We don’t want to mix our metaphors, now, do we? I’ve probably taken you for granted most of my life. But you are a BIG part of my life (scuse the pun) and I know that you are like family, and, since you can’t choose your family, you’ve gotta learn to love them. I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t love you yet, and probably won’t for a long time. But I am trying to accept you, I’m trying to be gentle with you, and I’m even trying to look after you a bit better these days. I don’t want you to fail. I appreciate all that hard work you are doing day in and day out just to keep me alive. If you could just keep doing that whilst I figure all the other shit out, I’d be really bloody grateful. I do actually like squeezy honey.

Thank you, body.

Kate xx