I thought I was so small.

I thought I was so small.

And because I thought I was so small,
I thought I really shouldn’t need much.
And so I fed myself as if I were small.
And I gave myself a small amount of things.

And because I saw myself as small,
I surrounded myself with people who saw me as small.
People who thought I needed help.
People who thought I shouldn’t be so much. I should control myself. I should remove pieces of myself.

And because I saw myself as small,
Even what I thought was my evolution, was actually about becoming smaller.

After years of binging and dieting, simply eating less seemed like growth.

After years of battling with body image, being in a smaller body looked like improvement.

After years of hating my emotional sensitive parts of me, controlling and restricting my emotions seemed like healing.

After years of wishing I were good enough to “make it” in a dance world, forcing my movement into handstands and yoga poses looked like I figured it out.

And so I kept pulling in tighter.
Smaller.

And because I was pulling in so tight,
I had all this energy that didn’t have a place.

And so I twisted it. Used it as motivation.

My DESIRE to be bigger.

And so I fought and fought to be bigger.
While believing I was small.

I wished and fantasized about all these big things. Goals. Dreams.
All while restricting myself to be even tighter and even smaller.

It’s like, the being small, is what propelled me into trying to be big.
The anti and pro fighting the same fight.

And I expected it to work.
I expected to feel fed,
Without having to actually EAT.

One more time:
I expected to feel FED,
Without having to EAT.

I thought I was so small.
And I thought that believing that was better.
I thought that being small would make me humble.
But it actually made me arrogant.
Thinking I could get away with mistreating my body and my spirit to get something.
Thinking I could just try harder and be better and that’s all it took.
Arrogance.
Ignorance.

I thought I was small.
But really, I just wasn’t willing to take responsibility for my bigness,
That has actually been here the whole time.

I thought I was small.
But I’m actually just
Not.

🌎

Originally written February 13, 2022.