Andie.ink

My favorite point in child development are ages 2-3. It’s the most magical moment in a child’s life. They learn agency, self-efficacy, and self-determination and my most favorite… they learn they have body. My oldest figured out he could climb walls. My youngest is natural gymnast and I play juggle gym while she practices high flying tricks.

I learned I had a body. I remember my awe of being able to use it to do things. I remember the magic. But then that agency was taken away from me. At a young age someone else took control of my body and in order to survive, I chose to forget I had a body.

Since that moment my body has been a burden. A heavy weight that I have to drag along and deal with. My soul and my body separated when I was taught that my body was something that could be used. I’ve done horrible things to it to beat it into submission. To get it to perform. To protect it from being used by anyone else including me. In response my body has fought back. Because it cannot recognize itself, it’s fighting blindly. Swinging at whatever comes its way including its own protection mechanisms. It’s destroying itself. My skin, my organs, my nerves, my muscles, my bones… in confusion are just giving up. The pain I experienced as a child during sexual assault is relived daily throughout my body.

I have a disabled body.

At 35 I started reparenting myself for a third time.

And 3 years in, I am 38 tomorrow, I am learning I have a body. I’m learning it can do things. I’m reflecting on what it has done. I’m trying to teach my skin and my nerves it’s O.K. to feel. I’ve teaching my lungs and my heart to breath and beat in sync. I’m teaching my muscles they can move and that they are strong. I am teaching the very marrow of my bones that it is good. It is worthy. It is capable.

It is too late to climb walls. I am quite sure I will never be a high-flyer.
But my body has done many things. It has been many shapes and sizes. It has been weak and strong. It has climbed mountains and created life. It’s been cut open and sewn back together.

It’s done all of this while being disabled.

I have a magical body.