Feeling Grown

On knowing my worth

Having celebrated my birthday last week, I thought it would be appropriate to share something I penned about growing older and more accepting of who I am.

Shoutout to Joe Glasgow* over at Chronically Creating for this refreshingly unexpected writing prompt: 300+ words about sweating as a teenager…

Those Days

When I was a teenager, I sweat. I ran for miles and miles, my face flushed a shade between tomato and beet. I ran on the heavy, shifting sand of the beach, the waves both coach and competitor as they crashed at my feet. I laid lazily in the late afternoon sun and dominated the Scrabble board, my friends groaning at my scores. These days I can’t last an hour in the sun, but those days I always wanted more.

On the lifeguard stand, 2016.

When I was a teenager, I dreamed. About the 2020 Olympics, my idols, crushes, and first kiss. I was as overprotected as I was charged with a need to be seen, to be wanted, to be missed. Does he like me / does she hate me / are we friend or foe or frenemy? The anxiety exhausted me.

When I was a teenager, I withdrew. I didn’t feel pretty, or witty, or smart—everything I wasn’t filled up the room. The ‘gifted and talented’ girl who couldn’t tell time, whose poems were childish and simplistic in rhyme, who did far too much just to not fall behind. So I filled the room up with the things that I did—now I echo back to those days, honey, you’re just a kid.

My body won’t let me sweat these days, and I complain but I won’t blame it. We’ve run enough miles and smiled enough smiles when the mask was counterfeit. My musculature is melting into a softening body, mind, and spirit, and these changes remind me of what I’ve overcome, how I’m anything but unfit. I’m fit to love, to learn, to help, and heck—I’m fit to just exist.

In this knowledge I embrace the person I have come to be. Maybe one day I’ll sweat again, but I won’t do it to feel seen.

*Joe’s got an illustrated book out this week (wow!)—‘Be a Hero’ is 34 pages of fun with an empowering message and beautiful artwork by Ele Long. I highly recommend it.

Got my copy this week!