Last night I dreamed that my boyfriend said “there are a lot of things about this relationship that still make me cry.” Thankfully he wouldn’t have any reason to say that in waking hours. But as I was slowly waking up, I wondered “is it my relationship with myself that’s making me cry?” My subconscious was using my boyfriend as a reflection of me and my own relationship with myself.*

*the story in the first paragraph was approved by said boyfriend. 🙂

I’ve been trying to write my way to self-acceptance for the past six years, and it might take me another six (at least) to get there. I started with this piece and this piece in 2019. .

For new readers, the short story is that I had a traumatic brain injury at birth and was projected to be unable to walk, talk, or otherwise independently function. I run an entire internet blog now, so I’ve overcome those projections with a lifetime of miracles and hard work. The two are most definitely not mutually exclusive, but that’s a separate essay.

If we want to be precise, I first shared my story on stage during a middle school poetry slam. When I performed my poem in 2014, I didn’t actually understand the gravity of what I was sharing. How could I? I was fifteen years old with a child’s understanding of the world. Still, I’ve been trying to tell my story for years simply as a way of understanding it.

For example, I wrote in 2023 that “I would see the face in the mirror more as a roommate I begrudgingly lived with than as MY own reflection. I don’t know if other people have this same challenge – this estrangement from one’s own physical body.”

Even just in the past two years I’ve come to understand that yes, many people feel estranged from their own bodies, that the mind and body are separate beings somehow.

For example, in her 2007 book Cold Tangerines, Shauna Niequist called herself “a spirit and a mind unfortunately trapped in rather bad packaging, like a bad ad campaign for a genuinely good product. I felt strongly misrepresented by my body.” I sometimes relate to this quote at a level so deep it shocks me.

Maybe we all feel like strangers in our own bodies. Is this part of the human experience? All I know is that every word written with integrity and heart – every word that sparks- brings me closer to myself. Fully. Embodiment is a journey, but it’s worth every step.