Dear Body,

I owe you an apology.

The attention that I’ve given you over the past several decades has been largely negative. You’re well aware that I’m not happy with the size of our pants or with the way shirts fall over your shape.
Letter to My Body

You also know that there was a time when I was putting a lot of time and energy toward decreasing the number in that waistband and making that silhouette a little more friendly to the eye.

But then you let me down in a big way, Body, when we lost that first pregnancy. We weren’t friends after that. I wasn’t interested in trying to mend our relationship. I hated you. So I wasn’t kind to you. I reverted to my old eating habits, and I went back to hitting the couch rather than the gym after work. And all that work we’d done? Gone far more quickly than I could have imagined.

Did you see that? It’s so easy to slip into that negativity when I think about you. That’s something I’d like to work on. I was supposed to be telling you I’m sorry.

I need to remember to treasure you from top to bottom. When I’m able to see my children smile or when I hear them laugh and chatter, when I pull Poppy into my lap for a hug, when I stretch up to give Rockford a kiss. I need to remember that I couldn’t do any of that without you.

I’d like to make peace with you, Body. I’d like to work together again, to try to be happy with you the way you are and to try to make you a healthier vessel. I want to be proud of you, and I want Poppy and Pete to know that you and I are partners. I don’t want them to have a mommy who’s at war with her own body. What kind of message does that send them?

So what do you say, Body? Can we be friends? Can I treat you well? Can I stop filling you with junk and start moving you around?

I’m going to give it a shot. And maybe this time I can be happy with you even if we don’t quite make it to the size I’d like for us to be.

. . . . .

Read other bloggers’ letters to their bodies — and add a link to your own — at BlogHer. Marste’s letter took my breathe away, and Virginia’s letter is so kind and forgiving. There’s a lot of good reading over there.