I’ve really been feeling myself lately. As I wrote in a recent post, I’m cute as fuck! Which is nothing notable, except I spent all of my life before going into the hospital either absolutely hating myself and thinking I was grotesque and ugly to determinedly neutral (but not really neutral) about it. I was able to say that I liked my hair and my eyes and maybe my smile, but that’s it. I hated my body even when I tried to be neutral about it.
Then I ended up in the hospital and unconscious for a week. When I woke up, I was scared, confused, and freaked out. I wasn’t thinking about what I looked like, obviously. After several days awake, however, after being informed of all I went through, I felt so much gratitude towards my body for carrying me through that frightening time. It did it without a hitch. Seriously. I have scars on my arms from all the needle pokes and a patch on my right leg that was numb for months and is now waking up with painful pins and needles. I have a bit of short-term memory loss, but it’s very little and I can compensate for it. That’s it. That’s all. I do more Taiji every day than I did before and my biceps are something to behold.
Some years ago, the change from hating myself to feeling neutral slowly started happening. I started appreciating little things like my hair, my eyes, and my smiles. Also, my biceps. And at some point, I noticed that what I had always called my flat yellow ass had gotten a bit of a curve to it. Then a bit more. At some point, I could definitely see that I had some junk in the trunk and I had to quit saying ‘My flat yellow ass’.
I still didn’t care for my body overall, though, nor my face. I was happy to reach the point of neutrality, just appreciating that my body allowed me to do most of what I wanted to do, especially concerning Taiji weapons. As for my face, well, I had to wear a mask when I went out any time in the past few years, anyway, so who cares?
I really was as neutral as I had ever been about it before I entered the hospital. I didn’t want to look at myself, but I didn’t waste any time moaning over it, either. I just pretty much ignored it and acted as if it didn’t exist. Not the best way to deal with it, but not the worst way, either, by far.