The first time I was complimented on my body was in high school, after gym. I had been complimented before, of course. Someone with a fast metabolism is often the envy of others, who took no qualms in telling me how skinny I was, in remarking at how they could see my ribs, of laughing when they could easily pick me up or wrap their arm entirely around my body. They complimented me then, surely. They told me I was so thin and beautiful. 

I never wanted to be thin.

The statement is likely to be taken as insensitive, so let me further explain: I have struggled to stay at a healthy weight all my life, because my body will devour any and all fat or muscle upon my body. I can breathe and count every rib. I can wrap my fingers around my arms and have their tips touch. I have always been small. 

I found out two years ago that I have something called Functional Dyspepsia. The nerves in my gut don’t work. It explains why I never thought I was hungry as a child, because I cannot tell the difference between hunger signals, pain signals, or full signals. They are all pain to me. They are all agony. There is no difference in sensation. 

I lost weight before I saw the doctor. I lost a lot of weight. Weakness hung to my limbs as if it might snap me in two and still, I could not tell if I hungered or ached. 

In high school, a girl I hardly knew told me I looked strong in a tank top. She told me I looked muscular. I wasn’t sure how to accept that. I didn’t know what to say and managed a meager thank you. No one ever told me I looked strong before. I was told I was a strong woman, but I sat aware with the knowledge of how weak my body actually was. I could not gain weight and I could not hold it. And all my life, everyone envied me for it, while all I wanted was to be healthy. To be powerful. To look in the mirror and feel beautiful. 

I understand the envy–I envy those who can gain muscle easily, who have an easier time gaining weight at all. I don’t blame people for wanting a body like mine. Yet the words spoken to me, the interactions with friends and the teasing about how I was a twig, it reminded me, day in and day out, that I could snap in half if I wasn’t careful. 

I have a schedule for eating now. I cannot miss it, else I risk the wrath of my illness that will send pain signals for days. I will not be able to eat, I will hardly be able to stand, and the pain will fog my mind with such confusion that I would not be able to find myself in a coherent state while it threw its fit. I believe they’re hunger signals, likely, yet when I try to eat during these moments, all my stomach does it constrict and reject the offering. Each time I miss my deadline I think of my body. I think of the weight I will lose from starving until the pain subsides. I fear I will snap like a twig.

Yesterday I sat in my backyard in front of the fire pit I dug and built with my own two hands. I put up my backyard fence, shoveled out trenches and filled them with cement. Screwed the eight foot posts together, connected the boards to keep outside eyes out. I planted my fruit trees, my garden, moved rocks and wheels and boards longer than my house to make way for the vision I had for my property. To celebrate the hard work, I purchased marshmallows, I sat upon a piece of plywood, and I built a fire. I roasted the gooey deliciousness over the flames and turned my head. And I saw them. I saw the muscles in my arms, I saw them growing more defined with constant care and dedication. I saw the result of eating right, of taking care of my physical illness, of consuming more than usual in an attempt to gain weight. I balanced my roasting stick upon the ground and I put my fingers around my arm.

My fingers did not touch. 

I always thought I loved my body. I never saw myself as too fat, I never hated aspects of my skin, I never cared if my stomach showed or if my hair was a little messy one day. I thought, all my life, I had great body positivity. It wasn’t until I sat there in front of the fire, on a property I purchased myself, behind a house I built myself, surrounded by the plants I dug myself–it wasn’t until the light of day waned and the puffs of smoke coated the clothes drying nearby in a wispy mist that I realized how wrong I had been. I loved myself, sure. I thought I was pretty. I loved my hair. I liked my freckles and I relished in not shaving my legs. And yet, deep down, I didn’t like how I looked. I didn’t like how small I was. I didn’t want to be thin anymore. And I realized, while roasting marshmallows, that I was gaining weight.