Loving the skin you're in means being vulnerable with yourself and accepting who you are physically. It means recognizing that you do not exist for other people to like how you look. You do not exist for the consumption of others. It means accepting and embracing all the parts of you, even the parts you aren't proud of because all of that makes you who you are and owning the shit you don't like is the starting point for changing them.

Loving the skin you’re in isn’t about being performative. It isn’t about saying and doing shit for others to approve. It’s about centering yourself in all of you and being mindful of how you feel about yourself. I try to be extremely mindful, but my center is wrecked right now and I'm in the process of excavating and preparing to rebuild. These days I find myself struggling to speak about my journey - I'm too raw and vulnerable to share that in real time and space. I have started crying at every panel I’ve spoken on since May of this year. I am vulnerable and because I’m uncomfortable being vulnerable in public, I am closing myself off. Conversations are a struggle now. Engaging with people is a burden. I need time and space to heal so that I can interact with people in ways that feel authentic instead of guarded. I’m finally starting to take it.

But that takes work. It’s always work. Some of that work has been pushing my boundaries when it comes to how I see my body. There is a part of me that has always wanted to pose nude because I feel like that is the ultimate fuck you to a world that tells me I shouldn’t be seen. There is another part of me that doesn’t feel the need to share those images for public consumption. This is the constant battle because my love for myself is not and should not be rooted in anyone else’s approval of my appearance. Accepting, loving, and transforming yourself is some real humbling and evocative shit that deserves more than to be gobbled up by mass popular culture and shat into a pithy catchphrase.

I’ve been stumbling through this self-acceptance for a lot of the summer and most of it has been centered on my shorts and my belly and how I dress them up. I’ve learned that I use cosplay to get comfortable with my body…wait...that's not quite right. I use cosplay to get comfortable with being seen by others.

I'm comfortable with my body. I walk around naked, have sex in full daylight with the lights on, hot the beach or pool in a bathing suit sans t-shirt. I look in the mirror and look at myself. In real-time, I’m good with me and my biggest complaints are the extra work I have to do for my body to function with minimal pain and that’s more a function of age than anything.