Growing up, I couldn’t understand why there was such a huge disparity between my own body and the bodies I saw on the television, and in magazines, and particularly – as I got older – on social media. These bodies were toned and shiny and taut and golden. They didn’t have creases or stripes or stretch marks. They were petite with flat tummies, not five foot ten with wide hips and a soft middle.

I became obsessed with the scales. Every single morning, I would begin my day by climbing onto them. Three times. Just to check that the number was right and that they weren’t tricking me. If I were lighter than the day before, my day would go well. On the other hand, if I weighed in heavier than the previous morning, the rest of the day would likely be ruined. I wanted to look like somebody else. I ached for the opportunity to start again, to chop bits off and draw new parts with a black sharpie, to have neat lines and smooth edges.

“It has something to do with being less concerned with how my body looks and focusing instead on what I can do with it”

It has only recently changed, that I have slid from one pole to the other. Some of this has been to do with the company I am in. I spend time with people that love me exactly as I am, sharp elbows, bruised knees, and all. It makes such a difference being told, in words, that you are enough, that you are somebody who deserves love and support and respect, rather than being told all the ways you can remodel yourself to better fit into the shape others expect you to take. But I think it is also closely related to being less careful. It has something to do with being less concerned with how my body looks and focusing instead on what I can do with it, the things I can achieve in rowing and in netball and in all the other aspects of my life if I just stretch a little further, jump a little higher, push a little harder.

At the end of Easter term last year, while moving a boat back into the college boathouse after an hour out rowing in the sunshine, I scraped the rigger along the top of my arm. I didn’t really notice how much it hurt at the time, because I was concentrating so hard on not letting this very expensive boat fall to the ground, but soon it began to bleed, and I spotted the thin incision the rigger had made from the end of my collarbone to the bottom of my shoulder: a long maroon scab, almost like stitching, as if someone had tried to sew my arm back to my body.

“For so long I was unable to appreciate all the things we had made it through, my body and I”

I have always liked being injured. I know that sounds awful, and I don’t mean seriously injured, of course, not broken bones or snapped limbs. But cuts and scrapes, I like. Cuts and scrapes have always seemed to me like an opportunity for recovery, to rebuild myself, and make myself stronger. I have never loved myself very much, but the times when I watch my body fix itself, turn a cut into a scab into a scar, I am reminded that above everything else, I am pushing myself into a future. I am in control.

Year on year, for almost a decade, I let my body get the better of me. I grew as an individual in that time, of course, made plans, met people, moved through time collecting things and moments and experiences that make my life better and brighter, but I never managed to get over the feeling that there was something wrong with the vehicle I was doing it in. It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident. I felt perfectly comfortable sitting in a cafe and having lunch solo. I was more than happy to defend myself in an argument, to push back against those who tried to squash me. But to be happy in my own body without the reassurance of a significant other? For so long, this was beyond me. For so long I was unable to appreciate all the things we had made it through, my body and I.

Now, when I look in the mirror, I glow. Not every day, obviously. Not when I am bloated pre-period or covered in mud from a wet cycle back to college. But finally, when I look in the mirror, instead of seeing each of the bits I dislike about myself, I now see a whole person.

I still have the rigger scar. It is still long and straight, still runs from the end of my collarbone to the bottom of my shoulder, but now rather than an angry red it is a soft white colour, flattened not raised. Sometimes, in the shower, I run my fingers along the length of it. It reminds me that I am always growing, in ways that are making me better and bolder and more resilient. I am strong, and I am healthy. I can run for miles or row for hours. I can also eat an entire packet of biscuits in one go, if I want. I can live fully and feel at home in my own body, without anyone else.