ashley zoro on With Love, Amal

first of all i have to say you write beautifully and i am in awe. i started tearing up when you explained the situation with your aunt and what she’d said to you. to know that was possibly the catalyst for what came after is so heart wrenching. it hurts. so good, you're right. there's something rewarding about beauty, about being a woman of course-- looking like a woman, feeling like one. but there is something haunting and dreadful as well, you described it perfectly in this essay. i know everything in life is a paradox, what is some good without bad, some bad without good? but it still hurts just the same, it doesn't make the metaphorical cuts sting any less. it doesn't make the anxiety any better. and i'm so sorry you had to endure all this. anxiety is a nasty creature, i understand exactly what you mean when you say it literally made you lose your appetite. so what to do? i think you said it in your opening line: "My relationship with my body is, of course, ever-evolving. I have spent years re-learning her, trying to fully accept her, but every time I think I’ve got her, she escapes my grasp." i think that's it, we just let it ebb and flow. i think the important part is that you allow yourself to feel each feeling that arises, look at it and study it, let it live for a little bit so it can be released. and i think eventually true acceptance will come, and as we get older we will be so over all the fucked up shit that has happened in our lives that we will cease to care as much (i hope lol). anyway, thank you so much for mentioning my essay in this, i am so happy/sad to learn i am not alone in this feeling. the fact that it helped push you to post this, made you feel seen genuinely makes me so happy i could cry!! sending you so much love 💗