hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can’t move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going ‘damn i used to be able to do this no problem’ and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it’s boring and sometimes hurts but it’s so necessary???
i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)
you have seen, many times, the phrase love your body! and every time, like rainwater, it glides off you. not because you cannot love it - you mostly, like, tolerate it - but because of the word “your”.
is this your body? when you were 11 you had to start shaving your legs because other girls found it gross you were hairy. when you were 12, you had to stop wearing v-necks because of your chest - people were staring. your mother didn’t let you dye your hair. your first boyfriend makes you dress up in skimpy clothes for him, then hated when other people coveted you. what you wear and how you present determine whether or not people find you funny or annoying or arrogant. other people get to determine if you are pretty, a court of opinion so loud it blots any good intent.
when is the body yours? magazines and instagram and tiktok endlessly advising you to “take care of” (starve) your body as if it is a weed. you must hack and slash at it, defend yourself from its wanton desires. it is a shameful, greedy thing. it is more like an art piece. you are keeping it or being kept-in-it.
you try to language it to your therapist - it’s not that you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror, it’s more just that the thing that is in the mirror - it isn’t you. that’s why it’s so easy to take apart: you’re vaguely aware of the shape, but it feels like you are an animal hiding in the back of this cavern, snarling.
obviously you’re like stuck in it. it often hurts a lot, buzzes with pain and a strange numbness. so it is your body when it’s painful. that makes sense. otherwise - how many times have you been told to save yourself (your body) for marriage. for someone else. you are just borrowing it.
love your body! is so funny. somehow, without meaning to, the phrase reminds you - it isn’t you. you’re just inside it.
I know it’s been 5 years but Brennan Lee Mulligan saying “In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don’t, then it doesn’t” literally changed my life.
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