A New Frontier

At 46 I’m trying something new. It seems like there’s never enough time in the day for all the things I want to do — finally learn Italian, read all the books of poetry in our house, perfect an undeniably delicious risotto. But, I don’t spend any time on those things. I say I want them, but I put neither time nor effort into making any of them happen.

That’s exactly how I approach caring about my body. I say I want a healthier body, a more toned physique, a stronger, leaner, more comfortable body, but I don’t do anything about it.

Well, that’s not exactly true.

Sometimes I join a gym. Sometimes I use a credit card to pay for a set of sessions with a personal trainer and then only attend three. Sometimes I buy an exercise bike, a gazelle, a set of ten pound weights, resistance bands, a treadmill, a Weight Watchers membership, another Weight Watchers membership, a kitchen scale, a new bathroom scale, another Weight Watchers membership. Sometimes I count every calorie and track every bite and manically pin low carb, low fat, low taste, low excitement recipes.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I hate my body.

Most days, I’m happy for the meat suit that carries my heart and brain around. Most days, I’m thankful for the ways I move through the world. Most days, I don’t think about the violation of being watched for six months without my knowledge when I was 22, my every intimate moment a show for a sick and disgusting man who didn’t serve nearly enough time for his crimes. Most days, I feel like I am a whole person with little thought of that trauma though the knowing it happened will never go away.

But I also know, bone deep, that one reason I gained weight—nearly 100 pounds since then—is that I wanted desperately to disappear. I wanted to fade into whatever room I was in, as interesting or appealing as an old throw rug. Rationally, I know that can’t happen because statistically well over 50% of women experience sexual assault and 81% have experienced harassment (according to the CDC), so women are targets regardless of appearance. Rationally, I know that, but I still feel how I feel.

My new frontier is a wild and untamed wilderness in which I try to believe I can be safe in my body no matter it’s size. That I can work to feel healthier without that work feeling like an admission that my body is somehow faulty or broken. That I can try to get through at least one day without thinking about my gray hair and laugh lines and upper arm fat and stomach rolls and stretch marks.

I’m trying a new thing: if not acceptance, then at least neutrality. To spend each day knowing my body, as it is, is the only one I’m going to get, and how it changes and moves is just a fact of my existence rather than a referendum on my value.

Walking into it won’t be easy, but I’m going to keep putting one size 10, callous-toed foot in front of the other, one slow and steady step at a time.