I have a love/ hate relationship with my body.

Usually I’m in the hate spectrum. I’ve internalised beliefs about the Black woman’s body that are oppressive and ugly that have been passed down through generation and generation.

I can’t remember a time that I haven’t felt that my body didn’t fit. That my body was too big, too fat, too Black. I’ve learned how to keep myself small, keep myself invisible( even while being hypervisible), keep myself safe.

Those moments when I’ve felt glory being within my body have been few and far between. And when I’ve got to that point of accepting my body, accepting myself, I can’t remember how I got there to get back there now.

My mum was thin once. But most of my life I remember her as being overweight. I saw pictures of her slim and I asked her what happened. Even that question is loaded and judgmental and wrong.

She said when she had lost all the weight she wasn’t well and she wasn’t happy. She said she was happier being fat. I didn’t ask any further questions probably because I didn’t like her answer.

I’m pondering this now, here. Wondering and wandering around my body.