Yasher Koach

Once upon a 2011 I believed myself to be broken.I doubted my abilities and clung to the belief that my successes were the consequence of good fortune and circumstance. Inversely, my failures were caused by my own deficiencies.

A year would pass and I would begin to nurture faith. Yes, in a higher power but also faith that maybe I was a being capable of being loved. Despite myself. The being my body couldn't hold on to would not help the truths I housed about myself. That I was incomplete. Incapable. Fractured. Defective. Thirty pounds of blame guilt shame to protect me from seeing the truth. Another 365 days and a trip around the sun and I would begin to forgive myself. Out of a morbid curiosity that maybe I was more than I ever imagined I could be. And what if I dared to believe THAT? Then he would come, and remind me I was not quite a mistake yet not quite worth keeping. Months later the decision would become easier as I was discarded. Or at least that's how it felt. Gathered with my lies in a bag I sat on the curb seeing only half of what I wasn't and none of what I was. And one day the rain would cease from the clouds yet continue from my eyes. Washing away the grime of fallacy I would get a glimpse. Peeking out from where I'd long since hidden her because she didn't match the feelings in my heart. Still teetering on the line between owning who I am and feeling the desperate need to change, I decided to go about it differently. What if, I proposed, all this time you had it wrong? And you really are just as you should be. Crooked teeth, fat cheeks, flat ass, thunder thighs. Maybe you were drawn that way on purpose. And maybe there's no maybe. For all the things you say thank you for, they are never your body. As if your heart and soul are an atonement for the material. Show grace. Have gratitude for every inch of you that takes just enough space. Believe that who you see you are and who you feel you are coalesce. Know that love has not escaped you as punishment. Trust that opportunities that passed you by were not yours. Own that in the years gone by, lies of less than rooted in fear have dimmed your light which was never meant to be shielded. Forgive yourself for ever believing you were a draft in need of editing.