Cultural context: In light of the Epstein files, many people online are having discussions about how modern beauty standards are derived from sick men and their pedophilia— hairless, thin, taut and gaunt bodies, you know, like little girls have, not grown women.

I wish I could take back the love and knowledge I have now to the girl I once was. She who was never good enough. She who was never thin enough, never pretty enough. I wish I could shake her and scream “LOOK AT YOU! You look like a goddess.”

I didn’t learn to love myself from my parents or family. I grew up in domestic violence and ate to cope with the fear and stress of my everyday situation.

I was chubby, and as a girl? That’s a sin.

Pinches to the backs of my arms as a shy 10-year old in a dressing room, while older women in my family go “she’s got so much fat” like I’m defective or wrong somehow, just for not being thin enough.

I often talk about how my divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me. I meant that shit and still do. I’ve become so much more confident through therapy and a fair amount of partying and exploration.

Men and women tell me casually like it’s just something they think I KNOW that I’m beautiful.

Not “beautiful for a big girl”, not “actually pretty.” No condescending qualifiers. Just beautiful.

I draw my naked form and share my body with lovers of my choosing and receive adoration and admiration like i never had before. It’s validating and empowering. I don’t care if those some judgmental family members and peers want to sneer at the way I live my life.

I don’t want approval from people that were never really rocking with me anyway.

I see the thick thighs that rub together, the fullness of my hips, the curve of my breasts and backside, the fullness of my cheeks and broadness of my shoulders and I am in love.

Not all bodies look the same. It’s a stupidly simple thought, but revolutionary for a woman who grew up in the age of heroin chic and super slim celebrities on TV and billboards.

As a kid, tween, teen and young woman I wasn’t allowed to really like myself. My body, like all women’s was viewed as a project. “Well, if you just lost a little in the gut”, “this haircut would be flattering for your face”, “you’re pasty, you should get outside and tan.”

I see a fertility goddess of the olde world.

I see womanhood.

I see survival.

I see audacity.

It’s heartbreaking that there are women I know, some more than twice my age, who have never learned to love and admire their naked form the way that I have. One does not need to be the most perfect rose in the garden to be beautiful or worthy, one needs simply to full embody who and what they are authentically and unafraid.

I was beautiful all along.
I’ll end with this: I’m down 85 lbs since spring of 2021, but I was worthy before weight loss. I was worthy while in the throes of depression. I was worthy while emotionally eating as a small child. I was worthy at almost 300lbs and I am worthy as I near a number under 200. I was beautiful all along.

To Embody Beauty is to live

A Tale of Two Realities