"I never noticed anyone else’s body, so why would anyone care about mine? When I see a stretch mark on a stranger, I don’t think anything of it. No amount of belly rolls or body hair on someone else has ever rung negative in my mind, so why should I see myself as any different?"​

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​I turned twenty-one this year and as it tends to happen in your twenties, I’m relearning a lot about myself. One key part of my personality that stands out is ny adamant love for the beach.

 

My mom often regales stories about me as a baby discovering the beach for the first time, coining my infant self as the typical “fish out of water”. In my elementary years, I practically lived at the beach. I have distinct memories of my siblings and I swimming out farther than the marked buoys and staying in the water until our blood was practically 90% fresh water. As a teenager, I devoted four years of my life to competitive swimming, rebuilding a different relationship with water in a way that would ultimately lead to my despise of it. 

 

I am no stranger to body issues, it’s something I’ve talked about openly before, and a part of myself that I’ve struggled with for over a decade. When I was ten years old, I became acutely aware of my baby fat clinging onto my child’s body, and wearing a bathing suit in public became more of an effort than before. As a competitive swimmer, comparison is at the heart of the sport. Comparing your best time to that of the team’s and silently ranking yourself against the other swimmers not only fed into my competitive nature, but it also fed into my unhealthy, obsessive thought patterns with my body.

 

When I looked back at pictures of myself during those years, it was heartbreaking to see a fit, strong, and powerful young woman who saw herself as anything but. Thinking about my body took up nearly every other thought in my head growing up, and I’d be lying if I omitted the reality that even through recovery, it still does.

 

This is all to provide some context for my retirement from the beach in my teen years. I loved the beach, but hated my body even more and the thought of classmates and teenage boys seeing me in a bikini was enough to give me a panic attack. It was nauseating, and I lost a lot of good years going hungry and hiding under baggy clothes in the summer heat.

 

Covid, strangely enough, was a waking point for me. There truly is nothing like a global pandemic that makes you realize obsessing over your reflection in the mirror might not be the most important thing in the world. During lockdown, I spent a long time becoming friends with my body again. I would wear t-shirts and dresses and shorts and even bathing suits around my family as a sort of practice in exposure therapy. I never missed the beach more than I did during lockdown, and I would be damned if I wasted anymore of my precious years hiding from myself over fear of how other people would perceive me.

 

But, recovery isn’t as simple as I might have made it out to be. It took four years after I made the decision to rebuild my relationship with my body that I went to the beach.
 

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"Nobody pointed and stared, nobody glanced, and nobody else seemed to care about their body. I saw stretch marks, belly rolls, and beautiful humans attached to them."
 

The entire drive to the sandy beach with my boyfriend and roommate in tow, I had to remind myself that this isn’t a fashion show—that I never notice anyone else’s body, so why would anyone care about mine? When I see a stretch mark on a stranger, I don’t think anything of it. No amount of belly rolls or body hair on someone else has ever rung negative in my mind, so why should I see myself as any different?

 

When we got to the beach, I instantly felt a weight lift off of my shoulders—it wasn’t as scary as I remember it. 

 

We laughed, swam, ate, and tanned all the same. Nobody pointed and stared, nobody glanced, and nobody else seemed to care about their body. I saw stretch marks, belly rolls, and beautiful humans attached to them. There was a strange sense of unity I felt on that day, one that reminded me that being human is to grow, and what a privilege it is to watch my body change as I grow into the woman I was born to be. 

 

It’s a funny, sort of ironic feeling now as I’m writing my triumphant “defeat” of the beach, as I am still in a constant struggle to perceive myself, as recovery is never a straight line. 

 

I do, however, feel so fortunate to have begun rewiring my brain at such a young age, as I am extremely familiar with people who are well into their adult years, and still struggling with their body image in the same way I was only a few years ago. If anything, I hope that my vulnerability reads as a call to action of sorts. My body image has stopped me from enjoying so many years, and what is more frightening to me than some stretch marks is continuing to let the idea of a “perfect beach body” take anymore time away from me.

 

Canada has some of the greatest lakes and beaches on Earth, and I, for one, am going to enjoy them.

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