A Letter to My Thighs
Dear Thighs:
I must apologize for all the verbal abuse I’ve hoisted against you all these years. The assault started in my teens when I became familiar with body shame. I considered myself too fat, and you, the lead offender. You weren’t the only body part I disparaged, but you are the one I denigrated the most.
I deemed you the stout upper portion of my much too short legs. I viewed you as massive. The proverbial thunder thighs. You chafed against each other because there was no space when I walked. That’s when I began my verbal assault against you, never stopping for one moment to thank you.
When I was 19, I lost 23 pounds. Anyone who wasn’t me would say I was thin. Since I was tall, I believed my reduced weight would give me long, thin legs. The mirror told a different story. Expecting the slender legs of a gazelle, instead, I found you, my fat thighs forever condemning my legs to be smaller than my torso.
I stood next to my five-foot-three-inch mother, and although I was five foot seven and a half inches, my legs failed to reach as high as hers. I was angry at you and angry at her, too. The least she could have done when I didn’t get her blue eyes was to allow me her long legs.
Through the decades, my assault on you has continued, with the same message against you tagging along.
I wish I’d been kinder. Now, I want to acknowledge who you really were and are.
Thank you for all the places you carried me as we traveled through life and around the planet. Thank you for being so strong and never letting my words stop you from being there for me.
I can’t believe I ever thought you were fat. Today, I’d kill for thighs as fat as you were when I was young. You were firm and didn’t have a drop of cellulite. But I never stopped to thank you for your strength despite the neglectful ways I didn’t offer you enough exercise.
You were gorgeous legs. Young, firm, no lines, no spots, and you carried me along while never complaining about the verbal assault you endured.
I finally understand how wonderful you were and still are. I wish I’d known when I was young to appreciate your value and beauty. Only hindsight allowed me to recognize your worth.
I hope my letter to you will convince young people to stop and appreciate what they have rather than wait to look back forlornly at what once was.
Dearest thighs, I now love you for who you are and all you’ve done for me. I love you despite sagging skin that reminds me of pleats that need ironing. I love you despite cellulite. I love you even though my beloved birthmark has almost completely faded.
Thank you for your understanding and for generously allowing me to travel atop you these many decades.
Love,
Ginni
I want to pass on some lessons learned:
Criticism of our bodies gets to be a habit we carry with us throughout each decade. You think I’d grow weary of hearing myself say my thighs are fat. Well, you’re right: I finally tired of my griping. By then, I’d wasted many decades. But it’s never too late to change any criticism to appreciation.
When I realized I’d spent decades disparaging a perfectly healthy pair of young thighs, I shifted my thinking. I had a talk with myself: If I don’t appreciate my thighs, and actually my whole body and face, now, when do I think I’ll ever be enough to appreciate myself?
It's not our appearance but how we choose to see ourselves.
In 1994, I lounged by a pool, ashamed to lift my fit body out of the chair and walk to the pool. I didn’t know I was fit. A woman walked by as I sat there huddled on the lounge chair like a fugitive. A grossly obese woman in a black bikini, she sauntered with an attitude that said, “I’m the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world.” As I watched her, I thought about delusions, and which one of us had the better one. Was it the young, fit woman thinking she’s too fat and holding herself hostage to a chair? Or was it that significantly large woman who believed herself beautiful?
She had the better delusion about herself. Her belief in both her beauty and worth allowed her to move through the world with pride, confidence, and no limitations. And that made her beautiful.
So, here’s the deal—if you’re going to have body dysmorphia and delusions about what you look like, choose one that feels good.
What we think we see becomes our reality.
Wow once again you've captured what so many of us can relate to! Thunder thighs live on. I laughed so hard at this. Thank you, Tori
I know that is is said that you can’t be too rich or too thin. I was a skinny child who heard the schoolyard name “Scarecrow” hurled at me often. When I approached puberty I was a late bloomer hiding the fact that I had no boobs beneath my padded bra. The ideal woman had curves Marilyn Monroe and Sophie’s Loren to name two. I wished for a body that resembled theirs.
Be careful what you wish for. I have more boobs than is necessary and try to hide my big hips and tummy. I love your musings on how our perceptions can affect our mood. I too am grateful that my body still can move and function.
Thank you for inspiring me to appreciate my body and how it still serves me as it approaches our eighth decade together.