When I was young, my parents tried to convince me to have plastic surgery.
If you’re surprised by that, you’re in good company. I didn’t have the surgery. This is what I look like. The teasing photos, the videos—nothing on my body has been altered by the medical establishment.
Only by time, maturity, fashion sense, and an ever-more-confident sense of self.
But the hard truth is this: my parents made it clear to me that my body was not good enough.
They wanted to police my eating. They wanted to consult a plastic surgeon. They definitely wanted to dictate my clothing and piercing and style choices.
Raised in religion, this meant I wore them two sizes too big. No collarbones or underarms or cleavage showing. No shape, unless “tent” counts as a shape. I was supposed to hide. I was supposed to keep men from their “sinful” thoughts. I was supposed to be less—in mind and in body.
But I left religion. And I left them. And every year, I leave more of that baggage behind me, tossed into dumpsters where it belongs.
I replaced the baggage with a carefully curated suitcase of admiration.
For my lean muscular dancer legs, the high arches of my feet, the softness of my belly, the plunging cleavage that appears in nearly everything I wear.
I love my eyes, dark and deep.
I love my curls (when they behave, let’s be honest).
I love the soft curve where neck meets shoulder, the hollow of my collarbones, my eyebrows, my lips, my well-tended smile.
Every time I see myself and feel a deep sense of pleasure at the sight, this is my revolution. It is my power. It my hard-won gorgeous joy.
Every time I post a photo and the simps beg to kiss my feet, it is my revolution.
Every time you tell me I am perfect head to toe.
Every time you worship.
You are worshipping a phoenix birthed from the ashes that were supposed to ruin her, to make her small, to trap her so deep in shame that she was willing to go under a knife for it.
She is a revolution. A goddess. A warrior.
And she deserves every drop of that adoration.