TW: food/weight/body image talk

Tonight, I’m getting into the bath full as hell after an enormous meal. My belly is a shape it hasn’t been in ages: smooth & a lil bit round from lots of food. Why? Because since July 1st, I haven’t eaten wheat, which is my worst allergen.

Till I found out about the allergy, I *hated* my stomach. It was bloated & lumpy; I wish I’d known that my body was screaming at me that it was sad. I thought I was an otherwise thin person with an ugly tummy of which I should be ashamed & though I didn’t restrict food...

...I fantasized about it often. I wished I could do something, anything to have the cute, flat belly I thought I was “supposed to” have. I learned about the allergy & mourned & panicked: I have a limited diet anyway (other allergies, intolerances, food trauma, you name it)...

...& what the fuck was I supposed to do without bread, without pasta, without crackers? I was sad, but ate super, super by-the-rules at first. Then I fell off the wagon at a restaurant job because I was too exhausted by the end of a dinner shift to cook properly for myself.

After a couple really rough nights this June of scratching my skin raw & watching my stomach revert to that warning sign place, I decided to buckle down & quit my allergens for all of July, at least, in the hope that I’d be able to rebuild those good habits & maintain them.

Wheat also wrecks my skin: I breakout like crazy & scratch & it makes me feel awful. I’d cake on makeup & aggravate the acne further. & for July, I decided to ditch concealer, too. I don’t wear foundation because of my freckles, so that at least was no adjustment. Still scary.

Tonight after 15 days without wheat, my belly is bigger than usual, but not because my body’s freaking out. I ate delicious gluten-free pasta & hella chicken & I feel fucking great, confident, even maybe a little sexy with this happy fat on me. This belly its right shape: round.

Tonight after 15 days without concealer, my skin is soft & smooth. I used a new face mask, & for the past week I’ve practiced a full, complicated skincare routine every night. I still have acne, but less & less as time goes on & I learn. I touch my face less in nervousness.

I’m never going to have a flat stomach. I’m (probably) never going to have a perfectly clear face, or at least not 100% of the time. But I’m learning not to mind that stuff. I’m learning to love this body through caring for it the way it actually deserves & to stop judging it.

I’m eating enormous meals when I want to & relishing the fullness. I’m wearing certain makeup & only when I really want to, less & less because I feel I owe the world “beauty.” Last night I wore lingerie & didn’t suck in my gut & didn’t change my face & I still had great sex.

There is a right way to care for my body & I finally feel like I’m starting to find it. Not only that, but I’m starting to like *being* in this body as I start to find it. This goes in hand with seeing a chiropractor who listens. With trying psychiatry again, though I’m scared.

It also goes in hand with accepting myself & coming out as non-binary.

I feel more & more beautiful & also handsome & also neither of those things: I feel more & more like a person & like the way this body looks is unrelated to its worth. It matters how I feel.

& maybe, finally, little by little but in increasingly powerful ways, I think I’m starting to feel good. Less angry to have survived my life. Less sad about what that life has been like. Not all the time, but more than I ever have.

I feel like I deserve to be here. As I am.