Crush-worthy.

Right now, I am in love with my body.

If today were Valentine’s Day, I would be cutting up doilies, pasting them on folded red construction paper, dusting it all with glitter, and and then writing sweet messages inside, carefully dotting my i’s with fat, perfect hearts.

It’s a strange and beautiful thing to look at my body and feel pride and love and joy.  To see the curve of my shoulder or the bend of my knee and think, Oh, yes.  That’s me.  To run that last mile and feel fatigue begin to seep into the muscle, but to feel my lungs still strong and my heart pounding and taste the sweat on my lip and think, Look what I can do.

Dieting distanced me from my body; I had to forget it in order to a be a successful dieter.   I exercised only for the needle on the scale, my only success coming when it budged. 

But now…now, working out is a celebration (yes, sometimes a celebration I must force myself off the couch for) and connects me to my body in ways I couldn’t have imagined.  When you begin to listen to your body and respond to its needs, the joy that it gives back is incredible.

 I’ll never be a fast runner, and I’ll never have a visible triceps muscle, and my little curvy belly will always be attempting to roll over the top of my pants, but this body?

It’s mine.  And I adore it.