I want my body back, body back, body back....

I want my body back.

I want my 16-year-old body back, the hundred-thirty-pound-mass with "giant calves" and "thunder thighs."  Give me THAT body back so I can try to hate it now.  

I want my 18-year-old body back, the one I felt huuuuge in if the scale approached numbers like, oh, say...138.  "Yeah, you're a real porpoise.  Downright obese," I would tell that stupid girl who said those stupid fucking things to herself.  

I want my 20-year-old body back, the one that seemed enormous in lingerie.  The one that was always over-endowed in the wrong areas and lacking in all the right ones.  Give me back THAT body, that I tortured into submission with all the jogging and biking and workout videos, never quite reaching perfection in.  

I want my 22-year-old body back, the hundred-twenty-big-fat-pounds I strategically covered in blankets and turned off the lights to have sex in.  Let me hide it and cover it in shame now, cringing in self-recrimination for my failure to measure up to my porn-addicted boyfriend's expectations.  

I want my 24-year-old body back, the one guys were attracted by, but I was repulsed by.  Give me back the opportunity to rebuff compliments and reject every nice thing anyone ever said about me as delusional.  

I want my 26-year-old body back, the one I rode across the entire state of Iowa in on RAGBRAI, and trained for a half-marathon in.  Let me remember what it's like to hate being a size 9, so I can recall the distorted thought process that minimized every accomplishment in favor of continued self-loathing.

I want my 27-year-old body back, the one my boyfriend told, "Well...there's the weight thing...but you can *change* that."  I want that moment back so I can tell him to fuck the fuck off, instead of telling myself that I am not worthy of love unless I am a size....who knows what the fuck size would have pleased him.  

I want THAT body back, the one I punished with relentless running after that breakup, to the point of serious injury.  

Give me back the body that could run without pain, bike for hours, and recover in 24 hours, so I can remember how demented I was to abhor being healthy if no one could see my clavicle or ribcage.  

I want all those days back I spent hating myself because I hated that body because I hated never feeling good enough.  

I want to trade in all these years I have actually BEEN fat for all the years I just BELIEVED I was ginormous.  I promise not to take it for granted this time around if I can just trade in these fat rolls no Spanx can adequately encase for the "revolting" slight protrusion of my stomach I was so disgusted by.  

Yeah.  I want my body back.  

Unrelaxing relaxation.

I went for myofascial release today. 

Periodically my hip gets so bad that I nearly go berserk.  Then I google and research and strategize what I will attempt next to make the pain go away. 

So for various reasons I am running late to get to this appointment that is twice as far of a drive as I had allowed for.  Rushing to go relax, I thought to myself.  Makes a lot of sense. 

Because I am late, she forgoes the 2-minute clothing removal and does the MFR with my clothes on.  On any other day I would’ve thrown on yoga pants or something comfy, but no, toDAY I wear jeans.  Awesome. 

We can’t start on my hip right away because my sacrum is tilted out of whack, so we start with spinal decompression.  Have I ever injured my tailbone?  Why yes.  Yes I have. 

I knew I should have gone to the chiropractor first.  I scold myself for another failure.  I am annoyed that I always do the same crap, that I am always late, that I am supposed to be relaxing but my jeans aren’t very bendy and the whole thing is the opposite of the slow, gentle healing it is intended to be.  I wonder why I ever leave the house. 

She works on my jaw next.  I try to put aside my OCD issue about people touching my face in hopes that my TMJ will be alleviated, but mostly I think about my pores getting clogged and the breakouts I will wake up to tomorrow.

On the drive home I call to see if there are massage openings at this other place I go to sometimes.  In 25 minutes...perfect.  I squeeze in an adjustment since the chiro’s in the same building and, after all, why do another treatment when everything’s in the wrong place?  More scurrying around. 

For the massage I go bare.  Well technically, first I get on the table with my panties and my dignity in place, then I decide it will just make it awkward for her to access all the hip and glute muscles that have aching trigger points.  Sigh. 

Facedown with my head in the little circle, I fail to close my eyes soon enough and have to ponder the handwritten “grandpa” tattoo on her feet, along with her french-tipped toes.  She starts with my legs, and I anger at the stretch marks in places that weren’t there a couple of years ago.  I beat myself up over a few hundred more things. I panic at the slight breeze in my nethers, where a properly-tucked massage sheet normally should be shielding.  Oh, well.  Look at my privates.  See if I care. 

I tell myself that even fat people deserve massages as I internally apologize to the girl for having to squeegee across my fat rolls and dimples and stretch marks.  I contemplate the vulnerability of baring one’s ugliness to a complete stranger, who - truth be told - doesn't really have much of a say.  I wonder about the stories these people could tell of the bodies they have to look at.  The possibility, not the promise, of being in slightly less pain allows me to surrender to this humiliation. 

Accompanying me as always, the despair lingering beneath the surface.  This is my body I’ve destroyed that I don’t want anyone to ever see again, this body that nobody (save a massage therapist or doctor) has touched in years and maybe never will again.  This is my pain that may never go away that has ruined my life and my hope and my health.  This is my summation of failures in the world and the reason I don’t want to be with myself, much less someone else.