Speaking Your Body's Truth
By Molly Rapozo, Lifestyle Editor
I am the proud owner of a butt, as many of you are. I am also the proud owner of a couple of other things, but the butt is a big deal. Said butt once made me feel ashamed and uncomfortable, but after a little growing up and growing into my own, I am the proud owner of my butt.
My butt and I never got along well—I mean, it wasn’t something I thought about a lot but it got roped in with my body, as it is part of that whole. And I wouldn’t be as dramatic as to say that it was—is, always will be—a relationship that is full of hatred, because it wasn’t, isn’t and won’t always be. Nonetheless, the hatred lingers somewhere in a dark, dusty corner upstairs.
In elementary school, that hatred translated to discomfort. Which meant baggy t-shirts and flowy pants—we remember culottes, don’t we?—and middle school was more of the same boring outfits, just as it becomes the same old story about a girl that didn’t like her body, especially when compared to the other girls in her grade or women of the world in general. And, no surprise here, this lasted through a sizable portion of high school.
There’s a shift: a moment during senior year, on a chance day that I decided to wear jeans—mid-rise, dark blue, classic Gap jeans—and not running shorts. Which, by the way, I usually argued for by means of practicality for after-school sports, which is a heaping load of steamy garbage and laziness.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror of the bathroom just outside the choir room and piled concealer over each and every blemish. We were released from class for a little break, which meant that a hoard of girls accumulated in the bathroom to fix our hair and gossip. From behind, I heard, “Your butt looks so good in those jeans!”
My what?
“Seriously, I’ve thought that before too! Where do you shop for pants?”
My butt. My butt. Since when?
There’s a certain level of comfort in hiding. When the world feels dark and dim, or possibly too loud and colorful and chaotic, wouldn’t it be nice to just pile blanket over blanket on top of your body—warm, safe and shielded? My uniform of t-shirts and athletic shorts became my safe hiding spot for when I acknowledged that I had responsibilities and duties in the world. I could run around in the world and put myself out there—without putting myself out there.
This isn’t to say that I’ve learned to favor tight clothes over baggy—on the contrary, baggy and boxy clothes make up most of my closet. I have learned, however, not to run from form.
Form brought with it style, which brought with it my truest self. When I recognize my body as a body that has lines and curves to it, others do, as well. Those lines and curves fill my clothes in just the right way, and that right way highlights my physical body but also, my entire being. To think that I could be boiled down and fully captured by an oversized t-shirt that had my high school logo on the front was a total disservice to myself.
The topic of loving yourself and your body has completely saturated mainstream media. It falls into the category of self-care to embrace all of your body and mind for what it is. Part of that care and attention to your entire being includes serving whichever way is best for you—meaning, give it the proper platform to speak its truth. Your body is a beautifully stark piece of paper, ready to be doodled on or sketched on or folded into a paper crane—whatever you see fit. The important idea here is to show yourself off to the world, however you want to do that.
When I embraced my body as it was, I embraced real clothes that didn’t hide me. I began to pick out clothes that I felt a connection to, things that I responded positively to in my sweet little teenage brain and felt like would render my inner self outward to the world. My clothes started to reflect how smart I was, how silly I was and how badly I wanted to be seen. I’d borrow my mom’s most bohemian clothes—a mid-length black skirt and an off-the-shoulder black top—just to imitate my idol, Stevie Nicks. Her early days of fashion—pre-chiffon and insane layers of lace, which is not to say that those days aren’t an inspiration, either—was just the style I thought I needed.
I said “was,” but it’s not really past-tense. My clothes do reflect how smart I am, or how silly I am and how badly I do want to be seen in those ways. I still wear t-shirts, but I think for at least a sizable amount of time on how they fall over my torso and shape me a certain way, about what design is on the front and what that says about me to the stranger I pass on the street. Hopefully, said stranger sees me as a punk with a soft side when I wear my favorite outfit—a t-shirt that my best friend picked out for me at a motorcycle rally with a necklace of clay lemons layered on top. Or, they see me another way. What do I care? I’ll continue to offer myself to the world as best as I can, regardless.
A few years ago, in that tiny bathroom with all those girls, I set out on the long, winding and never-ending road to embracing myself. My body carries; it carries my mind, carries my soul and carries all the wonderful things that make me, me—I won’t apologize for the cliché because it’s true. My body projects all this stuff it’s carrying, and no matter what my body looks like or how it feels, it’s projecting for me daily. The least I can do is to help it and all the things it’s lugging around by building them up, making them feel good and being as authentic as can be.