If You Lose The Measurements, Your Body Will Always Be Good Enough

“I love me a large fry from McDonald’s and on days when I’m trying to have more balance, I will settle for a small one.

I love me an oversized sweatshirt on a cold Ohio winter day and on days when I want to drown in warmth, I will take the biggest size I can find.

I love me a massive blanket on those cold days. Forget the ones that are just a ‘throw,’ for that size won’t do because I want to be covered in the biggest measurements.

I love me the luxury of a California King bed at a hotel far away.

I love me a Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper so large that it’s life-size, like the Route 44 at Sonic.

If you’re going to pass me a bag of Peanut M&M’s, I want the Shareable size but I’m not sharing; get your own, sorry not sorry.

If it’s a bath towel, I love me the biggest one you can find because it makes getting out of the shower something to look forward to.

If it’s the size of someone’s heart, I’ll also take the biggest one you can find because I’m tired of unhappy people trying to break people.

I have my size preferences in this life because, well, size is everywhere, but there’s one size I don’t want to measure anymore.

There’s one size I’m not talking about anymore.

There’s one size I’m so sick and tired of hearing the world preach about: my body and your body.

Our bodies are not a box of french fries that come in small, medium, and large containers.

Our bodies are not a throw blanket or a massive blanket that covers the whole bed.

Our bodies are not comparable to the California King bed at that hotel far away or the smaller twin-size bed from our childhood.

Our bodies are not ‘as big as a house’ and ‘as skinny as a twig.’

Our bodies are not a king-size candy bar or a single ‘stick’ of chocolate.

Our bodies have been measured incorrectly for far too long.

Our bodies have been placed side-by-side with inanimate objects for far too long.

We’re souls and souls are not inanimate objects.

We are not limited to limbs.

We are not classified by parts.

We’re not dress sizes and tags inside of jeans.

We are not numbers on a scale that the doctor reads just to offer you weight loss surgery or tell you you’re obese.

We’re not charts either.

You can’t weigh a soul on a scale.

So why are we still talking?

Why does all the world’s rhetoric still sync who we are to sizes?

The big girl.

The skinny girl.

Whatever happened to the girl?

Yeah, just the girl.

Thinner was better but now bigger is in and if you’re either you’re STILL not good enough.

Too thin.

Too big.

Gain some weight, girl, because you have no curves.

Eat a salad, girl, because you have too many curves.

Can you hear me scream?

How can you be good enough for a world that is not good enough for itself?

Because if it was good enough for itself, it wouldn’t have such impossible standards.

It wouldn’t have standards that work so relentlessly to destroy you by limiting you to size.

So lose it all, girl. Lose it all. And I’m not talking about the number.

I’m talking about so much more because you ARE so much more.

If you lose the category.

If you lose the labeling.

If you lose the measurement, you will always be good enough.

Don’t lose your soul by trying to weigh it or measure it.

You will never break the scale, but you will always break so much more in reading it, and I think this conversation means we’re already broken enough.

I think this conversation means we’ve allowed too many others to break enough of us, too.

The majority of your distaste for yourself and the knee-jerk ability to compare yourself to things we measure in real life is usually always derived from someone or something, like a world that doesn’t think it’s good enough.

Or a mom who doesn’t think she’s good enough.

Or a friend who thinks she’s fat and then confirms that she thinks you’re fat, too.

Projection is just as real as shaming someone’s looks and deeming such looks equivalent to a box of fries that is too large or a box of fries that is too small.

The projection will always be about the person shooting the bad vibes your way and never about the receiver.

Projection is why we even have to remind the world that size means nothing because without projection, we wouldn’t have the feeling of falling short and we wouldn’t have the need to compare sizes.

Like I wrote earlier, we measure objects.

You and me, we are not objects.

We are not determined and defined by which container we fit into: small, medium, or large.

We have nothing to do with sizes.

We have nothing to do with pleasing another by fitting into the correct size.

We are humans and humans begin and end at humans.

Period.

Now, go measure your worth.”

This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Felicia Naoum and originally appeared here. You can follow their journey on Facebook. Submit your own story here, and be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.