I've always had a complicated relationship with my body.
By complicated I mean that a few years ago I finally moved away from angrily and actively hating it and punishing it. It was just so TIRING. Constantly maintaining self-control, hating myself when I failed, hating myself when I succeed because it wasn't enough. Avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. Quietly sobbing in changing rooms. So much energy.
I know that by no means am I alone in this. But growing up in a smallish village in Israel in the 80th and 90th, I thought (no, I knew) everyone around me were gorgeous and hot and looked like what women should look like. I had no concept of myself other than through self-loathing. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.
I'm now in what I call "cold peace" - I don't love my body, I can't even imagine that. When a little voice in my head says " I don't hate this bit" a much louder voice comes out and says "don't you there". But I don't actively hurt my body anymore. Or at least, not as often. I've learnt that it can serve me, and serve me well. I don't think that would have happened without hiking.
Hiking, more than therapy, more than diets, have shown me another way. It wasn't by design. I didn't set out to hike in order to improve my self-imagine. But it happened.
I'm short, on good days I might say i'm curvaceous, most days - stocky. I don't have an athletic build. Nor have I ever been athletic, sporty or physically daring (and thanks to my PE teacher for making it very clear. The damage done to my self image by that women... but that's a whole different post).
Hiking, in a way that crept up on me, taught me it doesn't matter. Yes, I don't look like all those tall slender women around me. Yes, I huff and I puff and I sweat on the way up (and boy, do I sweat. Red face, sweat stains at the most unpleasant places). And I'm slow on the way down because I always imagine myself falling. My stride is not long, and I'm not the first nor the second fastest hiker. I'm the slow hiker, the one you walk past. I might be the one you perhaps pity or worry about. And yes, I do wonder what you think of me, when you walk past me on the trail.
But I discovered I can do 15k over 1500 meters of ascent with 10kg on my back. And I can do it day after day after day. These short stumpy legs manage to get me over mountain passes at 3000 meters, down into the valley and back up. They allow me to traverse boulder fields and to jump over glacial streams. They bring me to the hut at the end of every day. And they carry me towards the next hut without complaints. My back carries my supplies for me. My knees say nothing on those long descents. My body carries me to wherever I want to go.
It is no longer about what I cannot do with it, it is only about what I CAN do. It has shown me I can relay on it in the toughest times, and that if I treat it well, it will love me back. It's me and my body and the challenge that lies ahead.
This really sounds like an inspirational speech, doesn't it? that's where it should end. But it doesn't. Because i'm still me, and the self-loathing is so ingrained that it's still always there. I think I now I understand that it will always be there. But more than anything, hiking gave me the hope that real peace, or at least sustained long term cold peace in within reach.
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