Dear body

Dear body,

I have spent years apologising for you.

For the way my clothes fit me differently. For how my arms looked when I wore sleeveless outfits. For fearing the space I took up in rooms that were never meant for me in the first place.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw nothing but work in progress, something that needed fixing. Someone who needed to be smaller, someone who needed someone else to be called pretty.

I have spent years growing up to fit into this perfect image of how a girl was supposed to look like. I looked at models in magazines and actresses on TV and believed that’s what beauty is supposed to be. I judged myself everyday.

But now, I am sorry for all the times I tried to change you. For the way I forced you into clothes that were never made for you. For assuming you weren’t enough just the way you were.

I am sorry for the quiet ways I tried to make you smaller.

The way I wore dupattas, shrugs and sweaters over everything, the way I adjusted them to make sure it covered what I thought needed hiding. The way I avoided wearing a lot of outfits just because I felt like I needed to be someone else to even try to wear them.

And there were the things I chose to wear not out of comfort but out of approval.

I wore bras that were tighter than they needed to be, that covered more, that held everything in. I convinced myself that discomfort was the new normal, that the marks that stayed on my skin at the end of the day were part of the process. That the feeling of out of breath I got was a small price I had to pay to fit in.

I never questioned the norm, cause I assumed it to be my new normal when I hit puberty.

But after a long day, when I returned home in the evening and finally took it all off, I could feel the truth you had been trying to tell me all along, that all the assumptions the society thrusted upon me, were wrong.

A part of me knew you were growing uncomfortable. You were tired. But regardless you showed up for me every day all these years.

You carried me through long days, through crowded spaces, through endless comparisons and even longer thoughts that were filled with overthinking criticisms. You did everything you were meant to, even if I failed you by not accepting you all these years, even through the moments I thought you were never enough.

And along the way, something shifted.

Maybe it was the exhaustion, from the constant and endless trains of judgement and self doubt.

Maybe it was me growing up…

Or maybe it was a quiet realisation that I couldn’t keep living my life at war with myself each day.

I began to notice more than how I looked. I began to notice how I felt.

I realised confidence was not something that came from looking a certain way, but it came from how comfortable a person is in their own skin. In the clothes he or she wore and how at ease they were with themselves.

Something shifted in the choices I made.

I started questioning myself, questioning everything I had been taught to believe. Why were options always about how I looked but not about how I felt? Was how I looked all that mattered? Why was everything about shaping me better, holding me better, changing me instead of simply supporting me?

And in this whirlwind of change I was making within my own thought process, I found oh, so u.

For the first time, I had found something that did not ask to change my body to fit in. It felt like I had found a brand that was custom made for me, as I am not smaller, not bigger, not different but just…me.

It wasn’t just about looking a certain way. It was about looking amazing in the way I already am. It was about comfort and confidence going hand in hand.

It was about being content in my own skin. Celebrating the girl and the woman I was growing up to become.

This feeling felt new, it felt safe. And this feeling was here to stay.

It helped me realise all the flawed choices I made in the past, choosing things that were never made for me. Things that made me adjust, shrink or hide.

And in those moments, I was done. I was done making the wrong choice.

Done believing I needed to change to be worthy. Done thinking discomfort was normal. Done apologising for taking up space I deserved.

You were never taking up too much space. The world wasn’t designed with you in mind and it was never your fault to begin with.

So today I want to say something that I should have said a long time ago.

Thank you…

Thank you for carrying every version of me, the girl I was, the girl I am and the girl I will be. Even in the versions of me that did not accept you. Thank you for showing up for me and supporting me, even when I did not do the same for you. Thank you for being patient while I learnt how to love you, while I unlearned the negativity surrounding you.

I am learning now.

Learning to choose comfort guilt free. Learning how to wear what feels right instead of something that just looks right. Learning that being different is my strength not my weakness. Learning that I can just exist without constantly trying to change myself. Learning that I am enough just the way I am.

And most important of all, learning to treat you with the kindness you deserved all along.

From today I will choose you.

And I promise to choose you again and again each day from now.

I am done apologising for you.

Instead I choose to be proud of you.

Not because you’re perfect according to some standard, but because you are mine and that makes you perfect.

And that’s more than enough.

With lots of love,

Me XOXO

A note from the oh, so u Founder’s Office:

We built oh, so u for this exact moment—the moment a woman stops fighting her body and starts supporting it. We don’t want to change you; we just want to ensure that while you are busy being “you,” you are, at the very least, still breathing comfortably.

Welcome to a new standard of support. Welcome home.