I come from a county that is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Anyone that gets out of that area is guaranteed a better life. I left my county a week before school started when receiving a scholarship at the last minute. Before I won my scholarship, my boyfriend of almost two years cheated on me with the person that introduced us in the first place. He cheated on me for two whole months and during those two months he already knew I was going through something. Simultaneously he also made promises to me that he would make sure I was healthy and happy. He said he would protect and make sure I was never hurt again. But he was the one who hurt me. It’s odd though because he also tattooed my name on his body as a grand gesture with out my permission. I took care of him when he was sick and injured, cooked for him, and defended him when he needed it. You can offer a man gold but they will always go for copper. My best friends tell me in Spanish “Las mujeres no lloran. Las mujeres facturan” (Women don’t cry. They make money) After I turned 18 he came crawling back and at the time I thought it was because he loved me. In reality, this little boy doesn’t know how to take time for himself. “Los hombres, regresan como perros arrepentido” (men come back like dogs with no home) says my friend. I stayed with him for another two months and then eventually my feeling dissipated and vanished into thin air. I felt nothing but pity for him that he could cheat on a woman like me, who could cherish and love him for another person that would never do the same. (we don’t like the other girl because she knew the whole time we were still together) I broke up with him recently and let go of other certain personal things and I feel like I’m finally stepping foot into a new chapter in my life.

I’ve been doing pilates since I was 11. I remember seeing an Ad on YouTube in 2016 of some muscular white guy basically saying that pilates was the solution to tone your body.

Toned.

I learned that word from him. At 11 I learned that the word “toned” was skinny but not the kind were you’re weak and defenseless but its muscle. But not too much. Enough to make it look “sexy”. I look back in disgust remembering that I let some white guy implement that school-of-thought in my brain at such a young age. I wanted to be toned like the gym models I saw in Nike Ads.

The ads purpose was to push the audience to purchase an online membership which is what I pressured my mom to pay for. After she purchased it I forced myself to follow the workouts and instead of also following the diet, I ate less and less.

No matter how hard I worked I never saw results physically or in the scale and eventually I stopped. I felt trapped in my body and I longed for the “perfect” standard body. Eventually I stopped but started again a few months later and it became a pattern throughout middle school. I’d always feel a new weight of stress and shame drop onto my shoulders each time.