I often wish I could turn back time and whisper to you over dinner, “Don’t listen to her, smaller isn’t better.” I’d remind you of the carefree days when your eyes lit up upon seeing your favourite dessert — the chocolate gingerbread house with vanilla ice cream — before the digits attached to food became chains around your joy. The number on the scale, the measurements of your body, the calories you consumed — they could never measure your worth.

If only I could freeze time in the middle of one of your dreaded runs on the treadmill as you were becoming lightheaded, and could only stare longingly at “calories burnt”, wishing the number would go up. I would wrap my arms around you and repeat to you over and over again that exercise shouldn’t be punishment for eating, it is meant to be a celebration of what your body could do. I’d bring up memories of you playing hockey, how you would be fully engaged in winning the game and not thinking about how many calories you were burning

If I could, I wouldn’t waste a second now to grab your hand and prevent you from spinning into the black hole of obsessing over numbers, over your reflection in the mirror, over the silent competition to eat the least at the table. I’d scream and I’d beg until my voice went hoarse, that you losing your period was not a trophy of thinness, but a warning flare from your body, that you had a worth independent of your appearance, that you weren’t more loved when you thinner.

Maybe then I could rescue my old self.

I think of you everyday.

(credit: featured image)