While I have, in my opinion, a fairly standard body, one without any missing parts or things that work differently than most bodies do, I have dealt with body image issues for almost my whole life. When I was a teenager I decided my hobby would be seeing how little I could eat without dying. And then, once I decided that had gotten old and I resumed eating, I still felt that I was just stuck in this body that was not very attractive or capable. I seldom looked at myself in the mirror and usually felt amazed when anyone thought I was attractive.
I never consciously felt the need to acquiesce to cultural beauty standards, but somehow I had absorbed them anyway and they shaped how I felt about myself for the first 25 years of my life.
But when I started farming I started to appreciate my body for it's capabilities, rather than to dislike it for the fact that my thighs touched each other and that my boobs don't look like Miley Cyrus'. I was amazed when I found my body to be capable of lifting 80 pounds, capable of convincing a giant animal to take some medicine, capable of driving a tractor or a team of horses (and seldom knocking the mirrors off my car), and capable of working for 11 hours straight.
Farming has really helped me to see my body as beautiful and as something I can be proud of, a feeling that has been so elusive to me my whole life. So thanks, cows, I think you are all beautiful as well!
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Ivy! You are inquiring, creative and industrious and your body is the physical manifestation of that. All that is beautiful. I'm here to tell you that, from my perspective, (older, with missing body parts and some quite creaky remaining ones), because you are inquiring and creative and all that, you will be more and more comfortable in your body as time passes. How cool is that?
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