Dear World,
I am okay in my body, please stop telling me to change it. No, I’m not “skinny” and no I’m not “perfect” but I do love myself and I really want to wear my bikini to the beach this summer. So please, PLEASE, leave me alone about my weight.
I am constantly bombarded with ads for diets, pictures of “perfect” bodies, and small whispers in my ear that I don’t have one of those bodies. Quite frankly, I am sick of it. I want to live my life and be me, and I want others to feel that they can do that as well. Everyone is beautiful, and I feel like we need to allow people to feel comfortable in their own skin regardless of how much weight they carry around on their bodies.
You don’t know what caused me to be this way, you aren’t my doctor, and you aren’t my psychologist. You don’t know about my eating disorders or how my life has pushed and pulled me around. You assume that I am unhealthy. You offer to help me, but you do it in a way that just makes me feel bad about myself. You take my self-esteem and crush it under your feet.
I am perfectly healthy. I eat well and I exercise but, yes, I enjoy pizza and french fries. I am secretly working hard to lose this weight that you say plagues me, but I want you to know that this is my choice. This is my struggle, and I did not start it because you told me I needed to. I want to better myself, but I am going to do it on my terms, and if that doesn’t happen by the summertime then that’s okay. I will still wear my bikini and lay in the sun, soaking up the rays until they are gone. And then I’ll eat some fries, or maybe have a drink. And I will still love and enjoy myself even when you tell me that I shouldn’t.
I know you are trying to help me, but please let me live my life. Let me enjoy the beach, and stop making stepping onto my favorite white sand illicit panic attacks. Help me if I ask, but don’t scoff at my cheese fries or roll your eyes at my pizza. I have a body, which means I have a beach body, so just let me be happy being me.
Love,
Rachel