body

My body is always changing, as I age and my disabilities fluctuate.  But my feelings about my body change even more!

I love my body for reals, hardcore, unconditionally.  My disabilities, my fatness, the strength of my legs, the beauty of my breasts, my smile, my hair.  My lovely, trustworthy vulva that gives so much pleasure to me and others.

My heart that has kept pumping life all this time, my lungs that breathe the sacred air.  My tummy that burns food to give me energy.  My brain which does complex thought.  My back, connecting all of me.  My blood, my bones, my feet, my ass.  My neck, my mouth that speaks truth.  Every cell of me.

fat laughter

My love for my body can offend people–if they think it’s part of my job as a fat person to hate it.  Some people really believe it’s every fat person’s responsibility to starve ourselves into a thin person.  Wow, pretty wild, huh.  My fat belly undulates as I laugh at this notion!

I heard this cool quote–you can’t hate yourself into a version of yourself that you love.  That’s how I feel about intentional weight loss.  Why would I torture myself for my well-being?  That’s a contradiction.  I want to be kind to my body, always.

Starving myself is not a way to be kind to me.  That’s just on a conceptual and emotional level.  But there are studies about what happens to people, as they starve.  How miserable they get, and the self-harm they do…  It’s really not good!

And there is scientific knowledge about how people regain lost weight.  It’s not about lack of willpower or emotional weakness–its about the biology of how animals work!  It is nothing to shame others about or shame ourselves about.  Please shed hate, not intentionally shed weight.

what I really want to tell you

I wore a bra to put one more layer between me and the world.  Well, one more layer between me and the cis dudes who would stare at my breasts unwantedly.  It was protection–psychological, not physical!

Also, I thought I had to.  At jobs–wearing a bra seemed necessary in order to be a conventional person and continue being employed.  Breasts needed to be contained.  Jiggling was unprofessional, to be sure!  Or even going to a store, or for a walk–bras were standard practice.

Then I had a friend who wore no bra.  Well, I had friends who were nursing moms who wore no bra, and I thought they were doing this amazing thing with their breasts.  Their kids’ needs for easy access was more important than anything!

But the friend younger than me who wore no bra–wow, I admired that.  I had not shaved my legs in many years, so I knew a little about defying convention.

My brave friend helped me become brave with my breasts.  We didn’t discuss it at all.  I took her good example as a seed planted in my mind, and I grew it for years later.

mentality

I used to hide my body.  Before, I thought it was private–I needed to protect it by hiding it.

Now my mentality is totally different.  I have a body–I am a body.  There’s nothing wrong with it, and I have no responsibility to hide it, beyond the social requirements of law!  It’s not private–it’s actually right here, behind this thin layer of cloth.

My breasts are beautiful, and I don’t need to pretend they aren’t here or pretend they don’t jiggle.  They are valid, beautiful, real, present.  I don’t feed kids with them, but they have as much right to be here as any.

My whole body is like that–valid, me, lively, desirable, totally ok.  That knowledge comes from myself and 40 years of struggle.  But it’s also witch energy, earth energy, goddess energy–way, way older than I am personally.

Thank you to friends, good examples, everyone who helps me know the earth and connect to the earth, all people who enjoy my body through sex or hugs or the knowledge I share.  The knowledge is in my whole entire body.

rainbow

This black tank top is so comfy, and I took this selfie of my breasts and a pretty necklace a friend made me years ago.  They used rainbow stone beads and tied them on red thread.  How lucky I am, to have such kind friends.