Autumn Oldaker Beth Curran

by. Autumn Oldaker

Dear Younger Autumn,

It’s okay to like girls even though your Pastor says it’s a sin. How could you not like them? Their hair smells like lilacs and their skin feels like a rabbit’s fur. Your first kiss will be with a girl while the Pastor preaches; you will sneak off and hide behind the bleachers. Her lips will touch your braces and your bottom lip. She makes you feel like undercooked chicken as she runs from you. Do not turn away from women because of what anyone says; you love who you want to love whether it be a man or a woman.

When your sister takes you to the store and offers to buy you a thong, don't wear it. Boys may like it, but it causes you to have urinary tract infections and and yeast infections. You should wear cotton underwear because a healthy vagina is better than a thong up your ass. Boys wear boxers with holes scattered around them like a meerkat burrow, so you wear that underwear like you are on the catwalk.

Your period will be like Pompeii. The cramps are bruises. It makes you sick like the flu on steroids. The doctors diagnose you with Endometriosis and you feel nails clawing in your vagina. The doctors won't let you have surgery till you are twenty-five because “you might want kids.”

Men will throw you around like a dog with a ball in its mouth. Women will break you like the glass snowman you knocked over when you were five. You can't put the ball or the snowman back together or the snowman. You fix the pieces with glue and throw trash away like the man who kicked you around.

Your relationship with your mom is an icy mountain, but you have a mom. She drives you to school, your job when you do not have a car. She holds your hair back when you're throwing up chunks of lasagna. You will see your mom’s best friend lay in a casket and be put into the ground. All those fights with your mom become short like an intermission at a play.

High school classmates die in car crashes. Sometimes you think that could be me. Babies like your nephew are born. One way you describe happiness is by holding your nephew for the first time. Don't give up when you remember how the bruises feel because your nephew is waiting for you to hold him.

Sincerely, Your Older Self

by Beth Curran

Hey, you.

I know the scars that keep ripping open and not allowing even shallow graves to exist. Name them. All of them. Go down the street to the beach where you go crabbing and stuff shells in your pockets, and race to the end of that jetty to see the lights of the bridge turn on right as dusk falls. That place. Go there. Alone. Scream. Fists in the air, scream. You are a beautiful little girl betrayed by so many people. But you survived. You are surviving today. You made it out of that tunnel that you thought was blocked at both ends. The one filled with refuse of other people’s empty souls. No one can take that spirit from you, brave girl. No one. After you scream, and the seagulls applaud your audacity, scream some more. Break some glass bottles. The kind that will turn into beautiful sea glass in due time. And it will take time. But those rough edges will smooth out, and you will be able to hold all of those pieces of yourself you thought were lost. You are bigger than this and have bigger things to do in this life. I see you, your green eyes paralyzed in fear, stained with salt from another night of pain. Your freckles sparkle on your cheeks and your brown hair blows in the wind. No, your freckles do not mar your beauty. I know that short hair is not you at all. But you will let it grow out. Just give it time. The big rock on the beach? It’s still there. Go to it now. Climb the smooth side, the one your feet naturally navigate. Look out to the ocean, and know that I am here with you, too. I know what lies beneath. So much beauty. As you look out to the bay where you learned to swim, don’t fear the crab grass beneath. The times you treaded water for hours trying not to touch the bottom—touch it now. Go out past the shallow end. Trust me. The view away from the shore will show you that there is more. You will become more than you ever know. You will leave behind what needs to be left behind. You will come back here years later and find solace. The rocking row boats, the blue and gray skyline, the mist of a foggy morning - will roll over you. And you will know that this place...this beach... this breath is in you and keeps you whole. No one can take your soul, your spirit, your wild essence. Just be you. Know that you are enough. Know that you are never alone. Every night the stars come out. You may not see them, but they are there.

Always.

by. Briana Schullo

Playground Body It was a back and forth, but it started with them. It’s not easy to pinpoint when I started my ride on this seesaw of body dysmorphia, self-hatred, and insecurity. Many memories have been repressed, a response to the trauma, and eventually, it all fumbles together into a pile that I stare at. I couldn’t look away for the longest time. I don’t think those piles will ever completely disappear, but they haven’t been mine to hold.

My body has been called fat since I was in elementary school. If I had to guess, my brothers were the first to spew it at me, but who’s to say. Maybe it was the new girl across the street that came over for a play date and asked, “Can I call you fat?” It could have also been my grandma who insisted I strap down my growing breasts when I was nine. Or perhaps it was my friend in fifth grade who suggested I join Weight Watchers while we were dancing in her basement. It also could have been the teammate on my softball team who punched my stomach and said I resembled the fluffy white baked goods mascot. Or maybe it was my dad who would subtly ask me to be his gym buddy while I was in middle school. You know what, it also could have been my mom who told me I was eating too many carbs and naturally big-boned when I gained twenty-five pounds in college. It’s too complicated for my mind to see the timeline of my body, but who cares because I see it all right in front of the mirror.

There was that side of the seesaw. Then I could lean back and see the pile on the other side. For just as long as I’ve been called fat, I’ve been called pretty. As I was taught, those two beings couldn’t coexist. You were either one or the other. And so when I was called pretty by two girls in my class in middle school, I didn’t understand. And when my relatives greeted me with a “Hello, beautiful,” I told myself it was in their family contract to say it. And when boys asked me out in high school and complimented my appearance, I reminded myself that people could always be lying. And in college, when guys would booty call me, I would grow repulsed that someone would want me like that. And when strangers have approached me with a line like, “I don’t want this to sound weird, but you’re very pretty” I imagine they were checking off their good deed of the day. It never has anything to do with me because I was taught that first and foremost, I am fat. And fat is always wrong and undesirable, and so my body is wrong and unwanted. I’ve stared at this other pile for just as long as the other, and it hasn’t made me feel better. Because going back on and forth on a seesaw would make anyone sick. I am not to blame for this.

To unlearn and learn at the same time is another game I’ve learned to play. With the help of Prozac, my therapist, and a push for vulnerability with friends, I am picking up the new game. I have unlearned that being fat is wrong. I have unlearned that being fat is ugly. I have unlearned that stretch marks are hideous. I have unlearned that my weight determines my health. I have unlearned that I am undesirable. I have unlearned that I am unworthy of love. I have unlearned that food is either punishment or reward. I have unlearned that exercise is hell. I have unlearned that taking care of your body is for others. I have unlearned that I deserved it. Every day I am shedding the lies, trauma, and ache I’ve stared at for most of my twenty-two-year-old life.

I learned that everybody has fat, fat is healthy, and fat is beautiful. I learned that when I weighed more, I was beautiful. I learned that my stretch marks are nothing more than skin stretching. I learned that I am healthy and my weight is just a number. I learned that I am desirable, beautiful, and sexy. I learned that I am worthy of love, and my body is worthy of love. I learned that food is fuel, cooking is fun, and there is no guilt in eating. I learned that the physical strength I gain from exercise is mental strength, too, and my mood is always better after a workout. I learned to take care of my body for myself because I know how to take care of my body best. I learned that I never deserved to go through what I have, but I am who I am because of it. I learned that I love her. I am no longer staring at the piles of my past because I’ve grown from that. I am far away from them. They’re specs on my horizon. I know that they’re there, and they might grow bigger on certain days, but that’s okay. They are shrinking as my love for my body shines.

My sweet body, The world has not been kind to you, and I learned to be unkind to you too. I no longer want to do that. Every day I choose to show you love, care, appreciation, and kindness. I’m sorry for the times I listened to them, but now I know that you were never the enemy. You are my friend.

Thank you.