Trusting someone with your nakedness is one of the hardest things in the world to do. That kind of vulnerability goes all the way through, from your bare skin right down to your bones and your heart and your head. That kind of vulnerability can leave you dead, if you are not careful. You are naked, vulnerable, and you can do anything, with them. You can be yourself, completely bare, and that is power, and that is strength, and that is what you deserve.

It took me until I was 28 to experience that, and it was something that happened because I ended up in a good relationship, with a good man. And he made me feel beautiful, un-self-conscious, and ridiculously sexy.

At the time, I loved it. Now--I cannot stand the fact that it took someone else to love my body, before I was able to be comfortable with it. That boy is gone, and it was good while it lasted, but what happened afterward is that it was like it never happened. It was all dependent on him. My entire perception of myself came from the outside.

Is it because you're so close to your own body that you can't see it? Is it because you and who you are feels so inextricable from your flesh and skin and bones that you cannot possibly ever be objective about it? That seems so deeply unfair. You are the one who has to live in this body. It seems to me to be a smart survival strategy, the acceptance of how you look and how you feel. It seems to me to be something you can't wait until you're 28 to experience and something you can't pin on anyone else.