Body

A break up.

This is the kind of piece that paid subscribers will be getting in their inbox monthly. I am teasing a few of these longer reads while I build up my readership and hopefully tempt a few of you over to the other side of the paywall.

No pressure. Times is tough. But if you can spare the cost of a coffee a month I promise to send you slightly happier essays than the one you are about to read…

Content warning: This piece contains body stuff. In particular it references pregnancy, fertility, endometriosis and other body struggles. Feel free to skip this one if its not for you.

Body

I used to be able to do the splits. Both ways. 

I could walk on my hands.

I could do an unassisted headstand. 

Backflips? Sure. 

Front flips? Easy. 

Cartwheels? In my sleep. 

There was a time when I could rest my head on my outstretched knees, sit in a straddle and put my nose to the floor in front of me. I could backbend, bridge, backwards walkover. I bent and my muscles obeyed. My body made shapes that these days I rarely encounter beyond a bag of salted pretzels. 

But my body doesn’t matter anymore. 

Was it when I became a parent? Was it pregnancy? Pre-pregnancy? Postpartum? Post-postpartum? Post-pre-pregnancy but pre-postpartum? Was it puberty? Post-puberty? Pre-periods? Was it periods? The sheer amount of them? Perhaps it was not being able to breastfeed? Maybe it was stopping trying? Was it the surgery? The second surgery? The c-section? Maybe it was the epidural that didn’t quite work. Perhaps the induction that lasted for four gruelling days. Maybe the hormones that I pumped into myself at 14 to kick start my growth. Maybe it was the growth that followed that didn’t know when to stop. Could it have been the pill? Or the mini pill? Or the coil that wouldn’t go in? Or the coil that went in under general and stayed until they dragged it out to make room for more growth. Maybe it was the endometriosis that took 10 years to diagnose. The adenomyosis that no one has explained. Maybe it was the endo that they didn’t find? The invisible kind? The 18 months and counting of infertility? The invasive scans? The repeated UTIs, the six-month-long bout of thrush, the unexplained inflammation hidden at the bottom of a postoperative letter to the patient. The patience. The patience. The growth. The growth. The growth. 

Whenever it happened, my body doesn’t matter anymore. 

I watch other people walking and I get tired.

I go to an exercise class and I forget how to breathe. 

I join the pain in pregnancy class at 20 weeks and stay longer than any other patient on record. The elderly volunteer tells me every time she sees me that I look like I am about to pop. I am only halfway I reply. Well then, it must be twins she says. Everyone else in the pool is smaller than me and double as pregnant. They keep leaving to have their babies and I am still in the shallow end, slowly squatting to the music. 

My body and I are getting a divorce. We discuss it over dinner. It is mutual and emotionless. I drive us home but we don’t speak. We have started to sleep in separate beds. 

In the shower I ignore my body and think about how I haven’t run in years. How I get out of breath from walking up the stairs. 

I sign the papers on a Saturday. My body gets my scars and sole custody of our son. I pack a bag and head to the airport. I don’t need a ticket because I am bodyless. They let me fly wherever I want because I don’t take up any space. I choose a plane that has been taxiing around the airspace above our city for a few weeks. I want to be air bound and directionless.

I watch my body from above, taking our son to daycare. Going to work. Driving our stupid car. Doing the supermarket shop. 

What a loser, I think as we complete our 757th loop of the same small patch of sky. 

I post on facebook about the divorce. 

I read the comments. 

I unfollow my body on social media.

I stalk my body silently. 

I miss it, begrudgingly.

I unsubscribe from body positivity.

I am not ready to brave face. 

I am ready to admit that I have a body. 

I am not ready to like it. 

One day I bump into my body in Lulu Lemon.

It looks good. Healthy. Happy?

We laugh at how much we both wish that we belonged.

We spend an afternoon trying on leggings despite ourselves.

My body and I enter mediation.

I go to a yoga class and I spend some time trying to reach my toes. 

I run 3km around the coast on a rainy weekday.

It is hard and it takes forever, but I do not die. 

My body allows me visitation.

I buy goji berries and matcha powder as an olive branch. 

I do 2 and a half minutes of pelvic floor exercises.

I order some leggings in the sale.

My body smiles. 

We are cordial, when we have to be. 

I am trying. 

We are trying. 

To matter.