Little, A Letter To My Fourteen Year Old Self.

Little One,
 (I know you don't think you're little, in any sense, but you are oh so small and fragile),
I know you're not happy right now. That's OK, things are bad. In lots of ways.
You're looking in the mirror, and you don't like what you see. Your body's changing, it's soft in all the wrong places, it jiggles when you move. Disgusting- you think.
Your face is puffy. Your skin's too red. In the winter you get facial eczema. Redder. Flaky. Sore.
Your hair is limp, and that henna experiment went badly wrong.
Your eyes are too close together, your nose dominates your face, someone told you once that you have thin lips. You're short. Your teeth are crooked.
You try so hard but you're never dressed right.
And what's worse- you think you're forgettable. You think that if you just up and vanished, not one person would notice. You think that if people see you at all, they probably don't like you.

If you talked about any of this (and to who?) it would become realer than real.
So you keep quiet.
You like the way it feels when you don't eat. Like your body's floating.
Virtuous.
You like the attention you get when you pick at your dinner.
You like how easily the lie slips from your lips "not hungry". It's powerful, keeping this thing for yourself.

You don't like the way it feels when you give in, and eat a family sized bag of chips.
Eating and panicking and on the verge of tears.
 In your room. In the dark. Secret.
You tell yourself, that because you're not thin, and you don't throw up, you don't have a problem.

Here are the things, you and I, we, know now:
- We were beautiful then. We are beautiful now, even on the days we don't feel it.
- Curves are awesome. They're sexy as all hell.
- Food is good. You're a great cook. Few things give you as much pleasure as putting together a meal and sitting down to eat it.
- Food is also necessary. Without it, your body won't work.
- It's not about how much you weigh. It's about how you feel.
- There are people who love you. So much.
- There are people who's hearts would break if they read this. They'd probably be pretty pissed off as well, but again, because they loved, and continue to love you.
- 8 years from now, you will not only be able to buy an ice cream without feeling hot and cold all over, and wanting to die- you'll walk through the center of the CBD, past skinny girls in suits and yummy mummies out for their mid-day-pushing-double-strollers-not-even-out-of-breath-what-baby-body-run. You'll stroll though the city center eating it.
AND YOU WON'T GIVE A DAMN.
It'll taste like fresh raspberries, and cream, and pride.