It was the fall of 1992. I was in the locker room of my high school changing before a volleyball game, listening to the chatter of my teammates. The conversation was unremarkable, the details of which I no longer remember. Eventually, the dialogue transitioned to a body-bashing session, where my teammates took turns going through the laundry list of things they hated about their physical selves. Breasts that were too big or too small, thighs that jiggled, stomachs that were too fat. (None of this was true, they were all beautiful.) I remember listening in silence, not unusual for an introvert, but this time it was in curiosity. Until that moment, it never occurred to me that my body was something loathe. I felt left out, feeling uncomfortable that I didn’t have something to contribute. I remember walking through my physical form in my mind while the conversation continued. I was nothing special – 5’7″ and a skinny 110 lbs. I was flat-chested, broad-shouldered, and all arms-and-legs. I wished I was curvier and prettier, but didn’t hate my body.

By this point, my body had carried me through over a decade of softball and basketball, seven years of running/track, and six years of volleyball. I loved playing sports. I grew up riding my dirt bike around the neighborhood with my best friend, literally the boy next door. We climbed trees, raced our bikes. One time he dared me to ride my big wheel up the tree at the end of our driveway, which was a terrible idea but I tried anyway. The smallest kid in my class, I usually wore my hair short, rocking a killer Dorothy Hamill at one point, and avoided dresses and other “girly” attire. I liked to pull my socks up to my knees-my mom still likes to tease me about that-and button my shirts up to the top.

I didn’t grow up in a home with an older sister (I am the oldest of three girls), and I don’t recall my mom ever talking about her body. She taught us how to play softball as soon as we were old enough to play catch. She coached my team in junior high when no one else would and we’d spectate her slow-pitch games. I remember one of her games during which everyone’s hair was standing on end, the sky dark overhead. Partway through the game, she came up to bat and at the moment she made contact with the ball, a bolt of lightning spidered across the sky and the umpire called the game as she rounded first, cutting short what would’ve been a home run. It remains one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. We lived a block away from the ballpark and it wasn’t unusual for us all to go hit around when the diamond was empty. We took family bike rides and watched my dad run races. My mom ran too, preferring to take to the streets of our small town later in the evening.

As I got older, post-college, I started to identify with what my teammates said that day in the locker room. I started to compare myself to other women, to focus less on what my body could do. My basketball and softball career ended with high school graduation and volleyball after my sophomore year of college. Even though I never stopped running, I didn’t start racing regularly until several years later. Part of me wonders if had I continued to compete (race) regularly after I finished playing volleyball, if I could have hung on to some of the joy and appreciation I had for my body as a teenager. For me, there seems to be a correlation to when I started competing less and when I started to dissect my physical self.  And that critical voice didn’t go away once I started competing again. It quieted down for sure, but it always seemed to be lurking. Also, I’m sure I became socialized to this behavior that is so common among women, as that conversation before the volleyball game played itself out hundreds of times in the years that followed.

Over the past several years, as the autoimmune condition put itself front-and-center, I find myself thinking about all of this a bit more. My body has changed significantly and I feel disassociated from it. Not only am I running less, but the weight I’ve gained challenges how I see myself. The narrative in my head is far worse than anything I say out loud to my husband/friends. As I’m regaining my health, and therefore my fitness, it occurs to me that these conversations we women are having amongst ourselves is really just an amplification of the horrible voices in our heads. At times, it feels like a bonding exercise, but in reality it is a damaging habit that diminishes all of us. While I don’t have children, I do have five nieces, and I want so much more for them. I want them to celebrate their bodies and lift each other up. I want them to honor their physical form, to spend their time with their friends talking about more interesting topics rather than who hates their ass the most. I don’t know how we “fix” this, but I do believe these habits are learned.

I’ve been working hard to rewire the narrative I tell myself. After all my body has been through the last few years, the last thing it needs my critical perspective. I’m trying to be kinder to myself, to give myself a bit more grace when I feel that progress isn’t happening fast enough and when I feel insecure. For someone who’s identified as an athlete most of my life, not being able to race much the last few years has been extremely challenging. The last marathon I ran was Boston in April 2015 (my fifth consecutive Boston) and it was a nightmare. I haven’t run a “fast” marathon since Oct. 2013. I love to train for long races. I savor being completely strung out from a hard effort, leaving every ounce of myself in a workout or a race. I think I’ve had a great deal of fear that I wouldn’t experience those things again. That my marathoning days are over, that there would be no more ultras. And while I didn’t give into that fear, I believe it and the insecurity manifested themselves in this horrible narrative.

Over the last few months, I’ve walked down that road a bit…what if I’m not able to race marathons anymore, or run long efforts on trail? What if I never qualify for Boston again? I would be very disappointed, no doubt, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I can still run. Even now, the most unfit I’ve ever been in my life (literally), I can still get in a decent week of training – I can enjoy a few hours on single track and run enough miles to make myself pleasantly tired. (That last part is really important.) And as I’ve opened myself to those doubts, I find the critical voice, the mean girl, is quieter. It makes me wonder, what if doubt and fear are the root of this narrative, this voice that doesn’t serve us? How can we cultivate the resilience to acknowledge and process those doubts/fears so that they don’t acquire more power than they deserve? How can we cultivate this resilience in girls and young women? I do think that being physically active/sport is one of the greatest avenues for this work. I see in my own self how it set me on the right path as a youngster, and now at 41 is helping me find my way back to a kinder, more compassionate perspective.

Moving forward, I’ll continue rewriting the stories I tell myself. Cutting short those that don’t serve me, and reframing those that are scary. I’ll be more courageous and honest with myself about the root of the stories, and not be manipulated by my own self-doubt. I’ll also watch what I say to my friends, and ask some questions when this dialogue presents itself, as it certainly will.  Habits are hard to break, but this one is worth the effort I think. I’m curious as to what words will fill in the empty space. They are certain to be more interesting and creative, of that there is no doubt.

“Being completely alive is a task, it’s not at all a given thing. It’s not just about being present in the world, it’s being present to yourself, reaching an intensity that is in itself a way of being reborn.”  ~Anne Dufourmantelle