“Countless nights I prayed. Countless nights I spoke to the air hoping someone was listening, and I would wake up and not be me.
That I would open my eyes and my fear of the mirror, food, and my body would simply disappear.
That I would wake up in the body of someone who ‘fit the mold,’ someone who looked ‘good enough,’ someone who could look at herself from the top-down, love what she saw, and embrace her curvy figure.
Someone who could exhale because living with the longing to be someone else felt like being choked, gasping for air, every single day.
And with every prayer, wish, and dream I made, sure enough, every morning I woke up in my own skin, my own mind, and with my own thoughts.
After years of wishing myself away, I am now bringing myself back because I know I have to be my own advocate. I have to be my own mentor and my own hero. No one will change my narrative but me.
I will wake up with this body every morning, and I will never wake up in someone else’s body, so I have to give my mental and physical health my all. It’s exhausting work, and so many days, I cry out of frustration because it’s a level of hard I can become uncertain I can ever break through, but I give it everything I’ve got. Everything.
Sure, it’s easy to look within myself and feel resentment and hate as to why this body of mine makes things so hard, but then I think, ‘How could I turn my back on the very vessel that has carried me all these years?’ I can’t and I won’t. I will feel comfort in saying the words, ‘I love my body,’ I know I will. I need to, oh, I need to so badly.
I see you. You feel like being someone else would make all of these wrongs in your mind right. That being someone else would make you finally feel free, beautiful, and acceptable. I know every inch of those emotions.
But love, you are wishing away the most incredible person you will ever know: you. You are wishing away someone so unique, so captivating and so extraordinary: you.
You are not a before. You are not an after. You are a right now.
Please do not waste another night dreaming of what you wish you could be because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, what you’re wishing for is already there. It’s already there.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Michele Lovetri. You can follow her journey on Instagram and Facebook. Submit your own story here and be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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