Living Outside My Body
Every Tuesday and Thursday, I get to revisit my adolescence. I work at a high school in the east end of our currently snow-consumed city, Montreal. When I found out last year my permanent post would include a high school, I was really happy. Up until then I'd only worked in a small outreach program for youth 13+, summer camps and elementary schools. As soon as the hallways filled with awkward, energized teens in September, I knew things were going to be A-okay, but I kept having moment upon moment of reminiscence and many flashbacks of my own high school years. Now, 6 months later, I have a blog where I get to write about it all.
Luckily my teenage years were pretty good in general, I graduated with honors and with a few awards, but I definitely struggled with bodily insecurities like everyone else did. Only the thing is you don't know that everyone else is feeling the same way you are when you're a kid. It's like you're not allowed to talk about it or something. You think you're the only one, only you exists and feels "this way" in the world, you are the center of the universe and trying to understand human nature is counterintuitive. So you wind up feeling uncomfortable and wishing you felt as happy as everyone else looks. Or at least I did from time to time. Recently I had a long conversation with a student who wanted to know why everyone else looked so happy when she felt like crap. I tried to convince her smiles are tricky when you're in high school, but she couldn't see past her own blues. Teens are the world's greatest actors.
In grade 6 my body started changing. In grade 7 I'd lie on the living room floor raising my legs straight up in the air and wondered why they didn't look that skinny when I stood up. Suddenly my tapered Levis didn't cut it anymore. Suddenly I had curves I didn't know what to do with. Suddenly my parents got divorced and I learned to detach myself from my body.
Somewhere along the line I picked up on the not-so-subtle cues society offers that your body is your ticket to places only the elite are allowed to go. Only hot girls get boyfriends. Only rich chicks look good in tight clothes, and only the strong survive. A bit of a rebel without a cause, I went into self-preservation mode and rejected my body and my femininity au complet. I cut my hair short, even shaved it once, and I started wearing clothes that eventually got me "most original" in the yearbook, but didn't give me the attention I really wanted from all the boys I was in love with.
I was an extroverted skater-hippy who pined after unattainable good-looking musicians and punks but couldn't for the life of me understand why they didn't love me back. Now I just have a thing for musicians, something I happily accept, though I constantly wonder what it would be like to date someone who wasn't into music at all. It'd probably be really boring. Or really f-ing wonderful.
Nevertheless, I didn't come to realize what I'd subconsciously done to myself back then until late CEGEP, when I had yet another "writing in a café" evenings. I've had many epiphanies in cafés. They're great. Self-reflection has always been a strongpoint of mine. Weird. I'm reflecting about reflecting.
By then I'd come to appreciate the pear-shape I have been blessed with, and gotten over the short hair phase. I have to tell you though, every once in a while I get the craving to cut it all off, one of these days I'm going to do it.
I had grown used to my body, but I still wasn't living in it. I still thought I needed to lose weight, my mind cloudy with self-doubt, wondering when I would finally get skinny.
I kept postponing things.
I kept telling myself, "I'm still so young. I'll really be living my life when I'm ___ this age." Well this age has come and gone, and the expectations I laid out for myself, though some attained, many remain unrealistic. How much pressure do we put on ourselves? For what reason? To please others? To attain our childhood dreams? Things change! People change. They do. Not always when you want them to, but if you agree that you are capable of change, then you can make it happen. As long as it's sincere.
Living in my body now means being aware, and being mindful of what's happening inside, but not obsessing. I definitely have a tendency to overthink why my hip might be achy, why my muscles hurt, but more often than not, I catch myself thinking this way and can reframe my mind.
I had dinner with my two beloved cousins and my sister this evening. Mel brought up "Roxy," who is my evil alter-ego, who talks shit in my head from time to time. My sister likes that I gave her a name and that I take her power away when she gets too nosy. I'm happy to report Roxy and I are working on a friendship, and I haven't had to tell her to kiss my a$$ in a long time. I think making that separation and being able to identify negative thinking has been very helpful for me when retraining my brain to go easy, and to put less pressure.
Sometimes I wonder how other people feel in their bodies. Do other people just never feel aches? What's the deal? Am I just overly-aware?
I have a vision of my head. It's a helium-filled balloon, and sometimes I need to pull it back into place when it's floating away.
Love and Peace (ooh, switched it up tonight!)
Katie
:)
xox lots 'o' love xox
Luckily my teenage years were pretty good in general, I graduated with honors and with a few awards, but I definitely struggled with bodily insecurities like everyone else did. Only the thing is you don't know that everyone else is feeling the same way you are when you're a kid. It's like you're not allowed to talk about it or something. You think you're the only one, only you exists and feels "this way" in the world, you are the center of the universe and trying to understand human nature is counterintuitive. So you wind up feeling uncomfortable and wishing you felt as happy as everyone else looks. Or at least I did from time to time. Recently I had a long conversation with a student who wanted to know why everyone else looked so happy when she felt like crap. I tried to convince her smiles are tricky when you're in high school, but she couldn't see past her own blues. Teens are the world's greatest actors.
In grade 6 my body started changing. In grade 7 I'd lie on the living room floor raising my legs straight up in the air and wondered why they didn't look that skinny when I stood up. Suddenly my tapered Levis didn't cut it anymore. Suddenly I had curves I didn't know what to do with. Suddenly my parents got divorced and I learned to detach myself from my body.
Somewhere along the line I picked up on the not-so-subtle cues society offers that your body is your ticket to places only the elite are allowed to go. Only hot girls get boyfriends. Only rich chicks look good in tight clothes, and only the strong survive. A bit of a rebel without a cause, I went into self-preservation mode and rejected my body and my femininity au complet. I cut my hair short, even shaved it once, and I started wearing clothes that eventually got me "most original" in the yearbook, but didn't give me the attention I really wanted from all the boys I was in love with.
I was an extroverted skater-hippy who pined after unattainable good-looking musicians and punks but couldn't for the life of me understand why they didn't love me back. Now I just have a thing for musicians, something I happily accept, though I constantly wonder what it would be like to date someone who wasn't into music at all. It'd probably be really boring. Or really f-ing wonderful.
Nevertheless, I didn't come to realize what I'd subconsciously done to myself back then until late CEGEP, when I had yet another "writing in a café" evenings. I've had many epiphanies in cafés. They're great. Self-reflection has always been a strongpoint of mine. Weird. I'm reflecting about reflecting.
By then I'd come to appreciate the pear-shape I have been blessed with, and gotten over the short hair phase. I have to tell you though, every once in a while I get the craving to cut it all off, one of these days I'm going to do it.
I had grown used to my body, but I still wasn't living in it. I still thought I needed to lose weight, my mind cloudy with self-doubt, wondering when I would finally get skinny.
I kept postponing things.
I kept telling myself, "I'm still so young. I'll really be living my life when I'm ___ this age." Well this age has come and gone, and the expectations I laid out for myself, though some attained, many remain unrealistic. How much pressure do we put on ourselves? For what reason? To please others? To attain our childhood dreams? Things change! People change. They do. Not always when you want them to, but if you agree that you are capable of change, then you can make it happen. As long as it's sincere.
Living in my body now means being aware, and being mindful of what's happening inside, but not obsessing. I definitely have a tendency to overthink why my hip might be achy, why my muscles hurt, but more often than not, I catch myself thinking this way and can reframe my mind.
I had dinner with my two beloved cousins and my sister this evening. Mel brought up "Roxy," who is my evil alter-ego, who talks shit in my head from time to time. My sister likes that I gave her a name and that I take her power away when she gets too nosy. I'm happy to report Roxy and I are working on a friendship, and I haven't had to tell her to kiss my a$$ in a long time. I think making that separation and being able to identify negative thinking has been very helpful for me when retraining my brain to go easy, and to put less pressure.
Sometimes I wonder how other people feel in their bodies. Do other people just never feel aches? What's the deal? Am I just overly-aware?
I have a vision of my head. It's a helium-filled balloon, and sometimes I need to pull it back into place when it's floating away.
Love and Peace (ooh, switched it up tonight!)
Katie
:)
xox lots 'o' love xox
I've always been, and always will be the most self-concious, self-loathing person you'll ever meet. Somewhere along the way, I just stopped listening as hard!
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