I witnessed myself forming my reality based on what I was told normal looked like; also accepting what I was told to accept, and how I was guided as a child to not see my skin in this body because God forbid if I accept this self as my self, the owner of the earth will supposedly throw me off the popular grid. I honestly found this exhausting, and it certainly did not help with my anxiety. Do not get me wrong, I was aware that this healing work is inevitable and will certainly be lengthy.

I get tired quickly and bored easily. I am the type of person who does not go to a shop wearing the same clothes I bought there. I wonder who else does this?

I learned to sew a few years ago because I needed clothes that were made for a body like this with love handles, and silver stripes, a big bone shape. Waiting for trends takes away from great moments of living, and self-discovery. I realised that following certain people does not validate the reason to wake up…

I like to think that I am on a path to discover who I am meant to be, I know that this self, mind, spirit and body are interchangeable because I’m carving a path that is just for me, this path brings silence, loneliness and yes, incredible flesh eating doubt, it feeds the imposter syndrome. And this path is sometimes long, and grey, and it manifests itself, not in certain parts that make up the person inside me. I thought that when I felt like this, I should huddle up, cry in silence, and use up all the walls I built to hide and hide in black and white gradations.

In the last few weeks, I have come to realise that someone who shows up in their true vulnerability and imperfection is considered vulnerable to failure. I never said I was strong, I never said I was powerful, I never said I would not bleed and have scars when rocks were thrown at me, I never said I could carry others if I kept walking. The only thing I have ever said is that I have been open with my unwanted visitors, call them voices, call them demons, but I have sat down and faced the beast, that was scary; to ask for life, to live, to have moments of darkness and light, to find balance, and I know that this is my definition of strength.

As I write this, I think of DR. Of course, we all know that when we see someone lose their shit, we are reminded of things in our lives that we did not handle properly.

It becomes a problem to live up to the lies and perception. I never wanted to hide from who I was. Over the years, I always knew that if I wanted to walk this path of healing, I had to embrace the pain that came with it.

You know what scabs mean to me: they mean that healing is possible over time, but if you interfere, the pain will always remain. How many of us interrupt the healing process, rush it, shape it, and sometimes selfishly abuse it because we lack patience. I do not know exactly what healing looks like, but I do know that the path to healing should be transparent and conversational.

This past week has been a difficult one… the moments when you get doubly angry are the worst and worst… when you get triggered, when the visitors have arrived it’s no longer a fight, it’s a war trying to figure out what’s wrong… why so sensitive… or touchy feely.

This thing happened to me and I did not see it coming ;I love tattoos, probably like many of us we find valid reasons why we permanently scar and carve sections if not whole parts of our skin. Well, over the years I have found a good understanding of what tattoos really mean to me. The thing is, this passion to scar my skin with ink has taken on a spiritual meaning for me. I feel that my body is alive, that it is its own entity, that my brain is there and my body is floating on the other side, and that my soul is the middle, as a link, and that these two are always in conversation with me.

I remember conversations I had with my fears. I said I want to live, that’s why I want to live in this body, that’s why this body should be mine, not borrowed or lent, but mine, because it’s the only body I have. Every day I learn about this changing body and its needs. I am also learning to define how to love it, how to embrace it.

The process of tattooing allows me to spend time looking at my body, studying it, looking at the texture, the shape, the tones, the thickness, the dents, just everything. Tattoos help me fall in love with what I thought was ugly, because tattoos are like a portal to owning this body. I tattoo everything that is important to me, everything I always do, see, eat, drink, places, icons, people I love, people who have shaped my career. I put different loves on my skin to constantly remind me to love my body.

But this process also includes precious times in front of the mirror.

The day I designed the tattoo with my tattoo artist, I had a knockout shock: when I saw my back, I heard one of my voices:

who is this? Another voice said, that’s you. I tried to put on a poker face. I was horrified to see myself like this.

How often do you forget your body size? I spent time with my tattoo artist this morning talking about a design I liked and wanted. And hopefully she comes up with a design that’s perfect, and we are really into this conversation, she’s precise, and cares, and then the moment comes when she takes a picture of my body for placement. Somehow the whole tattoo concept shattered by the shape of my body.

I realised that my reference sources are never a girl with a body like mine, there are no girls on Pinterest with backs like mine, and a thought quickly lingered as I realised that some tattoos will look different because of different sizes and shapes. But that was me trying to be logic.

I just wanted to cry, and for the first time I did not know why I was crying, but I felt pain somewhere. But what made me cry was the disgust I felt, and that I did not see any beauty in that image; and that image was me… that scared me that that meant I was not what I thought I was. So the whole day, the whole week, I was a mess. I talked to my partner, my best friend, and my co-worker, who gave me a big hug and gave me space to feel.

Over the years, I learned to love my body as I see it in the mirror – a process that took many years: mirror sessions, naked conversation, ugly cries, jounalling, therapy, fiction writing; Oh, but I never paid attention to what my back really looked like, and over those years it changed, shifted, and became its own entity. I saw its shape, which gave me a lump in my throat, wide and rounded shoulders, housing my arms, muscular, and it curves into my arms, one layer of skin rolling into another skin. The truth is that this part of my body was far from my daily eyes, the cry was my realisation that the work of healing must continue and or really and truly begin… because I want to live, I want to breath, this is the only body I have.