I choose to let go of insecurity and instead revel in love.

I have hands and feet. Fingers and toes. Lungs expanding behind white bone.

I have scars under my arms. On my thighs. On my left ankle. On my stomach. On my right-hand middle finger. On the inside of my left wrist. On my nose.

I have a birthmark on my face, and stretch marks on my hips.

When I sit in water for too long, my fingertips and toes wrinkle to enhance my grip. Evolution. I am a creature breathing, speaking, thinking, creating and existing on a rock that spins in space, and nobody knows why. We are all just here, together. We are all a part of one another, because we have nothing else but each other. Could there be a more magical thing?

How could I speak down to myself when I exist as both an inevitable truth, and an extraordinary fiction? I am a woman. And yet, I am a fire-breathing dragon. I am the bottom of the ocean. I am every blade of grass in the forest, every tear ever shed, and all of the love-light beckoning from every iris of every unblinking eye.

It’s okay that I make mistakes. I am selfish. Naive. Lost. Lonely. Unabashed to a fault. My stomach isn’t flat and I am my own worst bully, criticizing myself in every mirror. Sometimes I leave the ones I love disappointed. Sometimes heartbroken. And sometimes it’s them who hurt me. But It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. I am a lizard on the side of your house and I am the balloon that got away, I am a human being whose body tells many miraculous stories, and it’s okay. Nobody is perfect. Accidents happen. Skin stretches—extra weight snuggles up to us. But we learn.

There will no longer be space for emotional self-harm in my body or soul. There will only be coconut oil baths, loving assurances, and the permission to look my mistakes in the face and figure out their solutions without breaking myself down for having made them.

Love. Everything else is minuscule.

Relephant:

How to Fall in Love with Yourself.

~

Author: Shannon Wooten

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Flickr/Garry Knight