My old room’s been getting cleaned up in the ancestral homeland, which means, when I visit my mother, there are lots of photos to pore through of my younger years. It is amazing to see how I looked at various points in my history. I am simply amazed to see how not fat I have been up until the last couple of years.
I always knew I was kind of chunky. We talked around the house how I never quite got rid of the baby fat, but to look at the photos of me at eight, at ten, at thirteen, fifteen, eighteen… there was maybe a little bit of pudge. I can see how, shirtless, I wouldn’t be showing off sixpacks. But I had a convex stomach. I had musculature.
This is me at twelve:

My mother labeled this shot, at the time, “Body Beautiful.” And she’s my mother, so you know she’s objective!

I know that body image issues isn’t exclusively a women’s issue, but never dreamed how problematic it was for me. I mean, no question, my body because exactly what I always imagined it to be – I grew into the shape I saw in the mirror. But I wish I had been able to look more closely at the pictures of the me that were there all along.

They were something to see.