Necessity Over Vanity

My body was policed, shamed, and ‘dirty’ long before I could formulate a full concept of what my body is.

Here’s the needful…

I remember being about 7 or 8, my mother bought me sports bras for the first time, it’s warm in Zambia during the later months of the year, so I decided a sports bra and shorts combo was ideal. My body was immature, long and lanky. To my surprise, my aunts and mother had no objections to my outfit choice. It surprised me because I had often seen my mother and aunts paying great attention to what my older sister wore. But obviously, her body was different from mine. Her body was sexual, mine was not. She received attention that I was unaware of at the time, my mother and her sisters however had taken notice of the admires that began to linger around our neighborhood.

Fast forward to a few years later … A family moves into the home next door, they have two sons my age. I had a difficult time retaining female friends as a primary school age girl. For reasons still unknown to me, my friends decided they didn't want me as part of their circle anymore. When our new neighbors moved in, I had the need and the space for new friends. I remember being their friend for about a week or so before my mother forbade me from playing with them. Mind you, our interaction was limited by the fence that separated our two front yards. My mother was uncomfortable with me being friends with the two boys, I wasn’t allowed to play with them, for reasons I’ve yet to ask my mother about.

At that age, 10 or 11, my body had began to mature, but only slightly. I had small mounds on my chest, but still not much of a figure. The “don’t let anyone touch you where you don’t want to be touched” talk intensified at this stage. It was supplemented with christian reading material. The idea of my body being a temple, the notion of being a clean virtuous flower, as opposed to an unclean and therefore damned dirty girl was reintroduced to me in a central way. Ironically, at the same age, I started to feel certain feelings, and I wanted to explore them. But, exploring them meant that I was sinning and therefore damned, because mastuarbation of course was introduced to me in that book as a sin. I could not fathom why it was a sin to make myself have good feelings in “my temple”. it was mine wasn’t it? I wasn’t hurting myself or anyone else. I could not reconcile why it was wrong to feel good about making myself feel good. I was taught to shield and hide my temple, I guess even from myself in a way, so that it retained its clean righteousness.

The fear that came from not wanting to sin, coupled with the shame I felt from wanting to make myself feel good, while knowing it was a sin, hindered the journey of learning to love my body in a freeing and open way. I don’t recall being able to comfortably look at myself naked. I don’t remember feeling allowed to do so. The idea of looking at  my “lady parts” was unfathomable, and uncomfortable.

Jump ahead a few more years, I’m about 18 now, living in the United States. I’ve had my first kiss at boarding school, in another country. Mom has busted me for watching porn a few times, in a couple of countries, and at this point I’ve tucked the ‘your body is a temple’ book somewhere under a stack of clothes in my closet. I couldn’t read it, eventually I didn’t want to look at it. And still, I don’t really know how I feel about my body, how I feel being inside it (because then, that wasn’t even a question to consider), or how I feel when someone comes past my physical ‘bubble’. So unfortunately, or maybe rather fortunately in retrospect, the next 6 years, I’m 24 now, (fuck) become rocky, or I guess you could say stepping stones, as far as intimate relationships are concerned. All the ways they say you can heal yourself, I tried as many as I thought might actually work.

I’m trying this radical thing now. It’s working, but not in the way I thought. Although, appropriate retrospection allowed… I should have seen this coming. I’m trying to be as comfortable within myself, with myself, as I am without myself. I’m trying to be as comfortable with others, as I am without them. First, it’s shaking up how I think about myself, how I perceive myself, and how I see others seeing me. This in itself is disconcerting enough, to rid yourself of conditioned patterns and habits. It’s making me say things I ‘shouldn’t’, do things I ‘shouldn’t’, and wear (or not wear) things I ‘shouldn’t. And I suppose, most alarmingly, It’s making me change how I present myself to people; it’s surprising, shocking, or absurd to some, because they are used to a more accommodating, soft spoken, polite, and proper person. As radical, inappropriate, disrespectful, or impolite as my behavior may seem to the outside world, I’m just as shocked, but always awed, and sometimes just as disappointed at the internal and external expressions of myself.

Therefore…

I chose to simply make my own way, rather than be uncomfortable in the ways of others. I’d say it’s easier taking this approach, not always. Most times it feels like I want to cry, sometimes it feels lonely, a lot of the time it’s just plain aggravating. But, for every time it feels like I’m flying, for every time it feels like I can’t be touched, for every time it feels like there is electricity coursing through my veins, and I can see, touch, and do anything, I make that choice a thousand times over, in every lifetime. I make the choice to say the difficult things. I make the choice to do the things that make me feel like I’m going to overheat and sweat through my sleeves. I choose to believe that I can do those things in the first place, that I am able. I chose to be stubborn, within reason and intuition, about the things and people I believe in and love. I chose patience and necessity over vain ego, the freedom to be, feel, and do. I chose my right to freedom, and the ability to express it with kindness, compassion, gratitude, bravery, and openness.

Written by Muka Chisaka
Photos by Yogi