Story 5 - A letter to an old friend

Dear friend, 

it’s been a while since we had last spoken. It feels special to talk to you again, as if I am coming home. There is quite a bit I wish I had said, and had done differently, but that is in the past. Today, on a day when I am most grateful to you, I had to write. In a hope that you hear and perhaps, on a different level, even manage to grasp the reasons I’d behaved the way I had. 

There is a myriad of reasons for me to feel sorry, for all those times I wreaked havoc on my life and then gave you partial (and sometimes full and to an utmost degree of hatred) blame. Hating you is like hating the furniture you are made of, it is confusing but I have managed to do so most of my conscious life. 

We are all works-in-progress. What I see now is that I’ll most probably die imperfect, with flaws which make me difficult, make me deep or superficial, make me stubborn, but also make me me. This very graceful in its simplicity juncture of one’s self-awareness took me 30 years to get to. But lets’s talk about my apologies and about you.

“Every bendy corner of you echoed with a painful bump in my chest

when I wore sports clothes to the gym and your bony knees and elbows stuck awkwardly out of sleeves and sports pants”.

First, I want to apologize for all the negativity I directed at you. I hated you from the very beginning. When I was 14, I was for the first time faced with the revelation that I wasn’t exactly like most girls, you were too skinny, and too bony (for what exactly?). Whilst femininity was starting to blossom in my classmates and my teenage curious mind registered it like the stoplights I would come running into, your chest remained flat and your hips were just not there. Every bendy corner of you echoed with a painful bump in my chest when I wore sports clothes to the gym and your bony knees and elbows stuck awkwardly out of sleeves and sports pants.

When at 17, I started modeling, I allowed all sorts of different people make judgements of you, form my opinions of you. Then, I hated you for being fat in all the wrong places, my eyes never saw you for who you were, a 17-year-old girl. They searched for symmetrical perfection of a robotic cartoon character, which, not surprisingly, they did not find.

You were my tool to please others, which I needed to be malleable - skinny when I wanted you to be, with perfect skin and hair, and a symmetrical, mirror-reflected face. You refused to adjust and were just as stubborn as I was. Meeting Mike was a special experience for my awareness of those who disregard standards: this young boy, who was too feminine for the Russian macho male image, whose hair was long, standards for hookups very low, and clothing style impeccable. For my naivety of a small-town Russian girl, his way to carry himself was staggering, him being my first encounter with homosexuality and a beautiful feminine and sensual image of a male body. Mike opened my eyes on how one, no matter how different from the Holy Grail of stale standards of the beauty world, can find quiet satisfaction in going against the grain, in being whatever shape or form fits you best. In the model world, which is praising you one moment, and is punitive another, he managed to stay true to himself, happy with who he was, unapologetic of his difficult character, disproportionally large for his face eyes, or his sexuality. 

“I saw fat ankles, too many curves, nose pores that were too wide

and hair that was too straight, nose definitely too bulky for your cheek bones, and your face too animated with all those stupid facial expressions, which brought wrinkles to the forehead and in the corners of the eyes”.

I accepted Mike, but you, you I couldn’t accept. You wanted to grow and develop and you wanted to eat. I tried my best to contain you in the form you were, stop you at 17. When I looked at you, what I saw was not a whole picture of you and a home that you gave me, never causing a headache or too strong of a hungover, great skin, and long, ridiculously healthy hair. I saw fat ankles, too many curves, nose pores that were too wide, and hair that was too straight, nose definitely too bulky for your cheek bones, and your face too animated with all those stupid facial expressions, which brought wrinkles to the forehead and in the corners of the eyes. I absolutely hated every wrinkle and especially every freckle the sun gifted you in the summer.

When your face is made into a huge billboard, it is easy to focus on the nose pores, and not so much on the fire burning in the depth of your irises or the kindness permeating the oval of your face”.

Too fat, too bony, too pretty, not pretty enough, too sweet, too tall, fingers too long, skin too fair, hair too red, hair not red enough and too thin. I listened to all the noise around me, taking it all in like a sponge, even the slightest external opinion would sway me and send me into the abyss of hatred towards you. When your face is made into a huge billboard, it is easy to focus on the nose pores, and not so much on the fire burning in the depth of your irises or the kindness permeating the oval of your face.

Coming from a place of rejection and hatred, I’d always pushed you. I failed to listen to you. Most of the time, you needed nutrition and balance, both in the fuel I gave you and the amount of fatigue you could take from me. When I passed out at a photo shoot, instead of slowing down to take the next turn, I sped you up. I doubled on the coffee and the cigarettes, I ignored the new for you headaches and occasional stomach pains. Especially, I stayed silent when you started screaming mimicking the emotional state I was in. From my first ballet class, when my teacher stood on top of my legs with what felt like the weight I couldn’t possibly handle, from that first disobedience your inflexibility had shown, was the first time I learned to silence you. From there, I just went on. Till you couldn’t take it anymore, and you disappointed me by failing to work and study and party to no end, and ignore the emotional emptiness inside a new boy had left, and live on a Red-bull and cigarettes diet. How dared you, I thought.

“My dear body, I’m ready to be your friend”.

Today, I am sitting in my bedroom at the writing table, still in my night robe, looking outside through a sliding door onto the garden. The sun is about to come up, and the world is lazily waking up. I hear only birds chirping, and a light breeze moves the curtain from side to side. I smile into the direction of the door, towards the world. I am so very sorry that 30 long years I have been only negative to you, hostile to the one and only home I would ever get. I slowly started learning the hard lesson of really seeing you for who you are, a wonderful gift, and no less than that. You let me sport and develop, and you are fast and nimble, you give me signals when it gets too much and you empower my mind when I give you enough fuel and strengthen you. My dear body, I’m ready to be your friend.

Today, my friend, you have turned my world, in the most primal sense, leaving no way back and one very exciting road ahead. In spite of all I’ve done, you gifted me what is nothing short of a miracle. You give me a chance to be a mother. I will do my utmost best not to let you down. I smile at the sliding door one last time and get up to the bed to tell him the good news.

I’ll listen when you speak, love,

Your friend.