So I started this wanting to write some rambling post about my complicated relationship with other women and the idea of womanhood itself. I realized immediately after I wrote that piece that what I wanted to talk about was my complicated relationship with and resentment toward my own womanhood, as stepping into those shoes has not been a graceful process for me, but is it for anyone really?
I’ve always gravitated toward more “masculine” characteristics, whatever that actually means. I’ve always been a little bit loud, rough and boyish. Most of my friends growing up were boys, I had three little brothers. I liked to ride bikes, roll around in the dirt and break things. I’ve kept many of those “boyish” qualities coming into adulthood. However, along with those rough-around-the-edges characteristics, I have long felt the haunting weight of the ethereal femininity I secretly desired and idolized, but felt I couldn’t possess. Like somehow being a woman looked great on the rack, but fit a little awkward when I tried it on. If I have to wear anything other than jeans and a t shirt, I’m probably not going. I hate bras and shaving. When my period starts, I implode. I feel debilitated, gross and slightly embarrassed that if I laugh too hard bad things could happen. I’ve never been able to graciously revel in womanhood the way all these women around me do so effortlessly, at least from my perspective.
I felt inherently unattractive and from that developed an automatic gnawing comparison to other women. I’m too loud and profane. People don’t like women that are that way. My hips don’t curve the same, I don’t like dresses, my hair doesn’t fall over my shoulders that way. The list is endless. There came a point when I would cry before I went out to a bar or a party or dinner because I felt that every person looking at me knew how hard I was trying to be (unrealistically) feminine and angelic and they knew I wasn’t good enough. And I knew that too.
So after all this turmoil feeling I couldn’t fill the shoes of womanhood with all the beauty and grace it deserves, here I am posing naked in Joshua Tree with Maya and NevaehLleh. Absolutely terrifying. They are undoubtedly beautiful and have an exponentially greater knowledge of modeling than I do.
I assume immediately this is going to go so poorly. I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m small, I’m awkward, clearly not graceful. These women are the epitome of the celestial goddess, molding their curves effortlessly into this beautiful landscape. And here I am fumbling my naked body up and down rocks reminding everyone frequently that I’m terrified of heights, I don’t know what to do with my hands and my knee is, in fact, fine after I sliced it open on a boulder and bled everywhere. I’m thinking these women eat rose petals for breakfast and leave fairy dust everywhere they go, I mean come on are they even human? What am I doing here?
And I was so wrong. We talked about geocaching and hiking and coming home from shoots bruised, cut open, sore, cactus needles in feet, splinters in hips and thighs. These women are fucking fearless and loud and opinionated. They doubt themselves just as much as the next person and have the strength to do this anyway. They’re awkward and goofy just like me. They’re real.
And they’re beautiful. Which just might mean I’m beautiful too. Woman isn’t a list of strictly beautiful and feminine things. Woman doesn’t have to be soft, smell like strawberries and not have body hair. This shoot was woman in dirt and sweat and unshaven legs and a lot of cuts and bruises by the end of the day. Woman is strong and fearless and whatever she feels like being one day to the next and your ability to flow between the blurred lines of masculine and feminine doesn’t make you any less so.
I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you to Maya and NevaehLleh for reminding me that my roughness is beautiful. That I can be soft and ethereal (don’t forget to point your toes), but that’s not what makes me pretty. Thank you for allowing me to feel out where I fit in and providing a space in which I can exist safely and just be. There’s a duality to women I didn’t quite understand up until this shoot and I’m finding every day that I am exactly as I’m supposed to be.
Narratives. We all have one or multiple. These belief systems we create for ourselves spun from societal constructs and trauma meant to protect us from the things that hurt. I have two. 1. I deserve, and should expect nothing more than, abuse and shame because it is a language I am well acquainted with and know exactly how to handle. 2. Men are monsters.
I do not like my body, but I am learning to. I don’t say this by way of pining for sympathy. I say this because it is the harsh truth of the grating self criticism I experience on a daily basis. The first time someone told me I’m fat I was 10 years old. I now wonder if it’s okay to be a size 28 in jeans and love pasta and beer as much as I do. I cry when I don’t fit into a pair of pants from 2 years ago and pinch my skin constantly, hoping someday I’m half the size of the girls on my Instagram feed. Or maybe someday I’ll just disappear altogether. Lucky me.
Trying to navigate relationships when you’re filled with unbridled self hatred is another demon. Unfortunately, some of the men I’ve chosen to be romantically involved with happen to feed off of the shrinking act I’m trying to perfect. If your sole desire is to make yourself small, they will make sure it happens. Over the past year, I have become all of these unrecognizable pieces. I’ve lost parts of myself I don’t know if I can get back. I know they can not be returned to me and I will not receive an apology. I want to make the wise decision and say that time and introspection will heal me, but anger has taken place of liberation more often than not.
So, how did all this lead to me running around naked in a creek/abandoned structure you ask? Well, I suppose this is the beginning of my journey not only to find radical self love, but to find forgiveness and trust. Throughout the process of these photos, I was given a safe space to be honest and vulnerable. For the first time in two years, maybe more, someone was looking at me for everything that I am and I didn’t want to crawl out of my skin. I didn’t have a panic attack. Here is this person who just wants to love people for exactly what they are with no expectations or complicated desires. This person who just wants to watch humanity unfold and match that vulnerability with his own. And I found forgiveness and trust in that.
I need more people to be this soft and kind. I need to be reminded that people are still good because I lose sight of that and I am so tired of being angry. There are so many aspects of our society that I want to completely dismantle. All of these standards we feel forced to live up to don’t just lead to a body image problem we’ll get over eventually. If your self loathing runs deep enough you’ll put yourself in situations that externalize that hate. I don’t want to do that anymore. I have too many scars and the heartbreak is exhausting.
I feel like I’m letting go of a breath I’ve been holding for 22 years. There are no guidelines I have to follow. The standards I have felt so controlled by aren’t real. People can still be kind, soft and well-intentioned. At the end of the day, it is only you in all of your vulnerability and flaws. You, in all of your beautiful flesh and bone and love and truth. So here it is. This is my truth.
