I’m still learning how to be in this body.

On body image, perception, and the quiet grief of change.

This summer has been one of the most physically joyful seasons I’ve had in years. After two years of working full-time, running my blog, and completing a full-time master’s program, I graduated in June. It was a season of deep commitment, one I’m proud of, but also one that left very little room for me. I spent most of it sitting. Sitting at my desk, in class, in meetings, in front of screens. I didn’t realize how much I had disconnected from my body until I finally had time to move again.

I’ve been walking regularly, hiking, rock climbing, feeling the kind of aliveness that only comes from being in motion. I’ve felt my breath deepen, my muscles wake up, my skin catch the sun.

It’s been joyful, yes, but also tender. There’s a quiet grief in realizing how long I went without this. How long I went without feeling strong, or playful, or even just present in my body.

In the midst of all this movement, I started noticing a shift in how I was feeling about my body. Not in how it felt while moving (which has been strong and capable), but in how it looked. Or more precisely, in how I was seeing it.

It started in my closet. I reached for a dress I’ve always loved, and it didn’t fit. I stood there for a long time, looking at myself in it, not quite ready to take it off and put it back. It wasn’t just about the dress. It was the quiet realization that my body had changed, and I hadn’t noticed until that moment. Or maybe I had, but I hadn’t let myself feel it.

I hate that I care. But I do.

Last week, to prepare for a wedding I’m going to next weekend, I reached into my closet archives again. I had a dress in mind, something I’d worn before and felt beautiful in. It didn’t zip all the way up. I felt my body deflate and feel defeated, not because I didn’t have anything else to wear, but because I wasn’t prepared for how that moment would land.

The strange part is, I’ve actually been losing weight since graduation, without changing my diet. Apparently not sitting all day and the pressure lifting can do that. So maybe I thought I was doing better physically than I actually was. But the moment that dress didn’t fit, something shifted. It was like my body suddenly looked different to me… not just in the mirror, but in my mind. And that dissonance was hard to hold.

Side note: I’m a relatively small person, which has historically put me in a position of being gaslit when I’ve expressed discomfort with how my body looks. People assume that small means secure, or exempt from body image struggles. But it doesn’t. And that assumption has made it harder to speak honestly about what I’m feeling around friends like I have to justify my discomfort, or add an asterisk to what I’m sharing. When someone responds with, “Oh, please… you’re so tiny,” or “I wish I looked like you,” it doesn’t help either of us. It shuts the conversation down. It makes this experience lonelier.

The moments I’ve been experiencing this summer are small, but they’ve been adding up. Not into a crisis, exactly, but into a quiet reckoning. A slow, steady awareness that my relationship with my body is shifting again. That I’m being asked to meet myself where I am, not where I used to be, or where I think I should be… but here, in this unfamiliar in-between.

I’ve spent years trying to build a more compassionate relationship with my body. I’ve read the books, practiced the reframes, the affirmations, the gentle reminders. And I believe in all of it.

But lately, I’ve felt something I didn’t expect: shame about the fact that I still feel shame.

It’s like I’ve internalized this idea that if I don’t fully accept my body exactly as it is, I’m failing. Failing at feminism, failing at self-love, failing at being the kind of person who’s supposed to know better. And that feeling of being disappointed in myself for being disappointed has been quietly painful.

I catch myself trying to override the discomfort with positivity. And I do believe those positive affirmations. But sometimes I just feel sad. Or frustrated. Or disconnected. And I want to be allowed to feel that without rushing to fix it.

So I’m writing this not because I’ve figured it out, but because I want to be honest. I want to be present with the swirl of thoughts… some tender, some critical, some confusing… and try to find a place where I can just be with them. Not solve them. Not silence them. Just be with them.

I want to look and feel attractive to myself. And I don’t fully know what that means right now.

I thought I did. I thought it would come with movement, with strength, with the return of routines I’d missed. And in some ways, it has. But in other ways, I’ve felt more unsure, more tender, more exposed. I’ve caught myself looking in the mirror and not recognizing what I see.

And I’ve also felt guilty for even wanting that. Like I should be past this. Like I should be evolved enough to not care. But I do care. I care about how I feel in my skin. I care about how I show up in the world. I care about feeling connected to myself.

I want to be gentle with the part of me that’s grieving the body I used to know, and curious about the one I’m growing into.

This isn’t a breakthrough. It’s not a resolution. It’s just a moment of noticing. A moment of being with myself, honestly, quietly, imperfectly.

So here I am, learning again. And maybe that’s what healing looks like right now.