Today. Cloudy & cool. My favorite to hike in. Years taking photographs, seeking saturated colors & interesting skies, living in the PNW, have converted me to favoring an overcast day. Conversation with a friend. She’s experimenting with her diet. No dairy, sugar, gluten, grains. A disordered part of me wants to join her. I’ve weighed myself recently & saw the highest numbers of my life. My body continues to change & get bigger despite feeding it vegetables, taking it on walks, joining fitness challenges. Another friend texts to say she loves IF. I told her about it & no longer practice. A strong impulsive desire to join her too. The tracking app is still on my phone.  A lifetime spent practicing disordered eating. Years in undiagnosed orthorexia. My mental health would suffer if I tried again. Another friend texts to say she hasn’t lost weight post a serious surgery & wants to use my fitness pal to track her food. I feel tired for her. We’ve spent too much time focusing on numbers. Cosmetic outcomes. Too little taking care of our bodies in weight neutral ways. Moving for the sheer pleasure of it. The afternoon is spent searching for the file with the spreadsheets from 8 years ago when I kept track of everything my body was doing. That year I moved towards a plant-based diet. I required myself to walk, jog or hike a minimum of 5 miles every morning. Just to earn the right to exist in my body. An entire year: no alcohol, caffeine, sugar, anything processed. I ran races, lifted weights, felt strong – but isolated, full of anxiety that one chocolate chip would throw me completely off track. Many compliments on my outer appearance, but rarely felt internal peace. I came across random photos while searching for the ‘body file’ & sent one to a friend because she looks glowy & happy. She replies “you are stunning.” I say “we were both beautiful & had NO IDEA.” She says “well, I knew you were, but you never believed me.” I feel tired again: for the stories we believe about ourselves, the missed moments, the constant chasing of ‘life will be better when,’ the not realizing we are lucky just to be alive. And the not believing that we are enough. Just as we are. Right now.

***Note – this was originally written for Instagram and therefore could only have 2200 total characters. I’ve left it that way for consistency, though I know it would benefit from paragraphs and better wording. I wrote it raw and left it that way. ♥***