Dear my lovely round thighs,

I love you thighs—I love the slope and curves of you that represent my strength. I love the way you touch in the middle, meeting together as I walk. I even love the hair that I can never shave down closely. I love all of my thighs natural beauty.

I’m sorry I didn't appreciate your strength and beauty when I was young; it took me a long time to accept and then cherish the advantage of having larger, meatier thighs. I’m sorry that I wanted to change you, make you slimmer and hairless, perfectly tan without a blemish. I’m sorry that the rest of the world seems to hate their thighs; curvy or thin, muscular or twigs, everyone I meet doesn't appreciate the beauty of their own pillars of strength.

I love my thighs, but it took me a very long time to get here. Loving a part of you that popular culture's beauty standards tell you to hate is extremely difficult, but I managed to do it. I managed to block out all the images of unattainable bodies and the radios and commercials that tried to sell you something to change them. I stopped listening to all those people, and only listened to myself. She was small and timid then, so it took a while to hear her voice. I found that I hadn't been paying enough attention to myself, and my inner voice of confidence had greatly suffered from it.

I remember once that my mom and I went to see “Eat, Pray, Love”. I asked her why the main character ran away from the man she loved; he was charming, handsome, smart, and most importantly, he loved her back. Mom said back to me, “She didn’t love herself enough to let him love her.”

Ever since then, I have been working to fall in love with myself.

It’s a weird process; you feel ridiculous most of the time, and even a little shame when you remember that being conceited isn't an attractive trait. Working on loving yourself and all parts of who and what you are isn't conceited. It’s brave.

I started with one thing that I really felt confident about—my hair. For my entire life, I always had someone tell me how beautiful it was or asking “Can I just have a piece? You don’t need all of that.” (Jokingly, of course, but it was still weird to here when you're 7.) So every morning, I would look at myself in the mirror and think Your hair looks really nice today.

I practiced this every morning until it no longer felt strange. Then I moved on to my next feature, and then maybe a personality trait after that. It’s easier to fall in love with the parts of you that you already like, so start with those things. When you feel confident in those things, move onto the uglier parts—not your body, but your personality. You have to fall in love with your brain too.

There are still parts of me I don't like; I cringe a little when I look at the skin on my arms and shoulders and my feet have always looked like duck feet. Loving yourself doesn't mean not having insecurities, it just means that you can see past them and still thing I love me.

I love my thighs, and all of the parts attached to them, and that feeling beats all others.

With love,

T. Oakley