💖 This Body Deserves the Sun

A Soft Girl’s Guide to Body Positivity in a World That Keeps Forgetting

I deal with a lot of body dysmorphia.

I was rail-thin for most of my life—partially because I was young, and partially because of an ED I didn’t have the language for at the time. I’m still deciding how much of that I want to unpack here, but I think it matters. Because now, in my 30s, with the body of a grown woman, the shift has been… complicated. And some days, it’s a genuine mental health battle.

In the winter, it’s easier. Cozy sweaters, oversized hoodies, layers that let me feel like I can hide when I need to. But summer? Summer is relentless.

Nothing fits quite right. Everything feels loud against my skin and tight against my curves.
It seems like everyone else is tan and glowing and toned, and I’m standing there in my apartment, holding shorts I don’t really want to put on, wishing I could just go back to bed and disappear under a blanket.

The sun is out. The world is buzzing. And instead of feeling free, I just feel… visible. In the worst way.

🌼 The Midsize Middle Ground

We all know women’s clothing sizing is an actual nightmare. It’s inconsistent at best and emotionally manipulative at worst. Depending on the store, I can be anywhere from a size 10 to a 16—and that kind of range is devastating.

Picking up an XL and having it be tiny in one store, then finding another brand where the same label is basically a tent? Emotional terrorism.

And being midsize? These in-between sizes never fit quite right. A dress on a mannequin can be the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen—and somehow, four sizes up, it magically transforms into a potato sack.
Make it make sense.

Shopping slow fashion or secondhand is its own flavor of heartbreak. I love the vibe, I love the ethics—it matters to me in a world where fast fashion is filling landfills and relying on literal slave labor to stay on trend and keep prices enticing. But the trendy flea markets and curated racks? They almost never carry anything over a medium. And when I do find a larger size, the selection is slim (pun intended) and rarely cute. Or it’s $78 for a cropped tee I’m supposed to feel lucky to squeeze into.

The middle space is exhausting.
Too small to be considered plus-size.
Too big to be included in mainstream sizing.
And somehow, nowhere is really built for you.

🌴 Summer Isn’t Just for Thin People

The idea of a “perfect summer body” is so deeply messed up, and the fact that it’s even in our cultural vocabulary is infuriating. Summer bodies are literally just bodies that exist during summer. Meaning: everybody.

No one should be out here dying of heatstroke because society has decided certain body types need to be “covered up” out of shame. That’s not just toxic—it’s insane.

I was hopeful for a while, when curves started to be celebrated—however briefly—after the thinness-obsessed era of the early 2000s. But now? With the rise of people using Ozempic like it’s a miracle weight loss drug (even though it’s actually super dangerous unless prescribed for legit medical needs, don’t get me started on the horrifying side effects, one of which is literally blindness?), the return of the “heroin chic” aesthetic is creeping back in.

And I hate it.
I hate that we’re associating thinness with health again.
Because as someone who was at their thinnest and their most unhealthy? I can tell you firsthand: they’re not the same.

When I was thin, I looked sick—because I was sick.
My hair was falling out. My eyes were sunken in. You could count every rib and trace every groove of my sternum and collarbones. I felt like I was dying, because I wasn’t taking care of myself.
And for what?

Now, I actually feel healthy.
I’m not randomly collapsing anymore (which used to happen often), and I’m not dressing in shorts or skirts or sundresses to be sexualized by strangers. I’m dressing for comfort. For function. For me.

I don’t owe anyone a flatter stomach to deserve sunlight.
I don’t owe anyone a certain look to wear what makes me feel good.

And neither do you.

🌺 Choosing Softness Over Shame

Some days, I do not love my body.
But I’m still going to respect it.

I’m not going to starve myself just to have a flatter stomach.
I’m going to eat the calories I know I need to function, to think, to move, to exist.

I’m going to do the kind of movement that makes me feel good—the kind that makes me feel strong, powerful, connected to myself. Not the kind that’s punishment for the donut I treated myself to yesterday. (And yes, I enjoyed every bite.)

I’m going to wear the shorts.
The crop top.
The bikini.

I’m going to show up in the ways that feel good in this body and in this weather—because comfort, ease, and joy are not things I need to earn.

This isn’t about aesthetics.
It’s about softness.
And softness is not shameful.

🌞 This Body, Right Now

The body I’m in now—whatever size it is—is worthy of enjoying summer.

Maybe I’ll have to remind myself of that every single day.
Maybe I’ll have to say it out loud, in the mirror, more than once.

But I’m done wishing to be smaller.
I’m done hoping to be smoother, quieter, more put together just to be allowed to exist.

I don’t need to shrink myself to take up space in the sun.
And neither do you.

This week’s mantra:
“My body is not a trend.”