"Love after Love"

My body and "Love after Love"

Since last semester I had begun working with accepting my body and myself. It is something that I have been struggled with since I was a child. I have hypothyroidism and polycystic ovaries. Because of that, I had developed a different aspect of what society wants. In general, I have become accustomed to seeing myself through what I think others think, judging me and belittling me without really knowing what they are thinking about me. When I see my body through the mirror, I can’t control the voices in my head. Those that only see the worst on me. When I see myself in the mirror, I only see a weak woman with the defects that come with being overweight. I can't see who I am because what I physically see prevents me from noticing everything I am and everything I must give to the world. Seeing myself as an object, as someone who does not know me, I see a shy and useless young woman, who can easily be put aside. I see a girl invisible to the world, and I can't understand how she got here, how she is doing all that someone tells her that she can’t. I see other Latina, who comes to drain “American” resources as if she were a parasite. I see a girl who just by looking at her size, I thought that inviting her to eat would be expensive.  

I star in the Zen Meditation without knowing what to expect, just as a requisite for another class. But now it had become something bigger and more important. It had become a way to learn to control my mind. To be able to just get my mind blank and quiet. Because if I get control over my thoughts, I can start getting control over those voices. Because just at that moment as in the poem “Love after Love” I will be able to walk to my mirror and sit in front of it and just enjoy my presence.  “Love again the stranger who was your self…” Loving myself maybe for the first time and love” the stranger who had loved me all my life, whom I had ignored…”. 

For now, I'm just “peeling my image from the mirror…” working with accepting a piece of me and my body every day. Until the time come and I could see that special being who has gone through many changes and many challenges to get where I am in front of this mirror. To see the road traveled by many tears and the hidden repressed desires that look at me through the mirror. To see a lot of plans and a lot of tiredness and get wonder for what I see can’t in the mirror because is uncertain. Be able to sit in front of the mirror and with bread and wine notice all my faults and my defects without pain because I will know that all my defects are not even close in proportion to what is shining inside me. Be able to watch every curve of my body and although I will know that isn’t the ideal body, I will be able to just say “I loved you” because of it mine. And although I will be surrounded by the voices and the thoughts that showed me my defects, I will have the tools to just stop them and just love the body that I have because this body is who made me who I am and is who protect myself. I will look at every scar I have and next to some photographs I will laugh with the memory of each experience.