Once upon a time, I had a body.

On getting dressed in summer.

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Once upon a time, I had a body. Not was. Had. That part is important.

Once upon a time, I had shoulders, as in head-and-shoulders-knees-and-toes.

I had arms that reached for soft things, plush stuffed animals and Blankie. Capital B. Proper noun. Also important.

I had fingers that gripped onto monkey bars while I told my friends that I had Britney Spears’ phone number¹. It’s no big deal, I said, the rest of me hanging like dead weight. The rest of me inconsequential. It was 1999. What else could be of consequence when a direct line to Britney Spears was on the table?

I had legs that ran and feet that kicked and petal-soft baby blonde hair that had not yet known the false promise of a CHI straightening iron.

Once upon a time, I had a body. Once upon a time, that was the end of it, instead of the beginning of everything.

I’ve been thinking about my arms lately. Sleeveless dresses. Tank tops. The desire to strip off as many clothes as possible in the face of brutal heat. The light that hides what I hate and turns my day good. The light that emphasizes what I hate and turns my day bad. I think of my arms and I see Kate Hudson and Jennifer Anniston. When did they enter the story of my arms? I can’t remember; it feels like they were always there, doing pull-ups and yoga in my brain.

But I know it wasn’t always like this. Once, my arms were just things that pushed into the holes of Limited Too T-shirts and painting smocks. They stayed ready at my side, useful. But it’s been a long time since any part of me was just a part or a function, something I had rather than something I was. Every inch of me has a story now, a mythology I carry around and bring to dinner parties and to bed and those Target dressing rooms with the “helpful” 360-degree mirrors.

Now, it’s not head-and-shoulders-knees-and-toes as much as…

Head: Not sure if too small or too large, but would certainly not look good bald. Avoid baldness. Take photo of center part. Zoom in. Compare to older photo. Should I buy a supplement? Extensions? Couldn’t hurt.

Shoulders: Broad. Why did it take me until my mid-20s to know this about my body? I feel somehow ashamed I didn’t know this sooner instead of relieved, thinking of all that blissful ignorance. Tall and broad-shouldered? Boy, did I lose some sort of lottery. And now that you say that: Boy. Yes. Exactly. You said it. I look like a boy.

Knees: Somehow wrong. Not sure how yet but exactly, clearly wrong. I feel this must be true. Besides, give it time. I’m sure there is some SkinnyTok term that will confirm this to me soon. Remember leggings legs? Yeah. We’ll get there.

Toes: Fine from a distance, and I’ll take that as a win. But also: All-encompassing shame when I forget to shave the big one before getting a pedicure. Those three tiny blonde hairs? Monstrous. How dare I?

Sometimes I try to find a part of me that hasn’t been stained with a million impossible standards and rules. Often, I find only my eyes. A classic blue. Boring blue, even. But what’s ever really that boring about the color blue? Even I can ask that question. They’re something, I think. But they’re also never enough, because they’re competing with everything else, all those stories and baggage and wrongness. I have blue eyes, but what I am is everything else.

This is how it feels, anyway. No need to tell me that it isn’t true, or reasonable or rational. I always know this. I know that wrinkles are signs of a well-lived life, laughter carving through the harder stuff, making room for joy. I know that my legs carry me and my arms hug people and all the rest. I know. You probably know, too. But I would be lying if I said that that always feels like enough. Some days, it’s not even close.

What helps is to remember that once, I had a body and that was that. Heads-and-shoulders-knees-and-toes. A song, a dance. My arms were just arms, my legs were just legs. I didn’t know the ways a body was supposed to be “good.” I had not learned the ways a body could be lost. I did not know the importance of finding it again at any cost. I think of this version of myself, decades in the past, and she is distant, but she is real. It doesn’t seem like some pipe dream to get there again, not all the time, anyway. Not when I know that was me once, too. Monkey bars. Britney Spears. Blankie with a capital B. I remember her. She was as real as this me, wasn’t she? Yes.

Once upon a time I had a body, and that was enough. Maybe one day it will be again.

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1. For the record, this was not true but felt like a fairly important lie at the time.