A Note From Ruby

When I was born I was sent home from the hospital just like every other healthy baby. It wasn’t until they had me home, all to themselves away from the busy day in the maternity ward, that my parents noticed something. My eyes just seemed — different. Quiet enquiries ramped up to urgent responses from consultants who knew what it meant, and I had my first surgery at three weeks old. There were complications and more surgeries in my first year and then on into childhood, all in an attempt to preserve as much of my vision as possible. The end result was almost no vision in one eye and pretty poor out of the other, but I have made it work.

When I was really young, I didn’t feel any different to other kids and I seemed to be able to do most things while wearing my glasses or contacts. Without them, unfamiliar places were scary and I would slide my feet trying to feel where the surface changed or find the steps before they tricked me. As I got older, I began to realise not only did I see the world differently to everyone else but I looked a little different to everyone else too. My eyes were uneven, murky and full of scars. My glasses were huge and thick. I was oblivious to the bigger picture — how lucky I was to have the vision I had, how lucky I was to live in a country that allowed me free healthcare, how lucky I was to have a family that loved me and only ever believed in me.

Heading into my teenage years, the way I saw myself spiralled downwards and before long I thought everything was wrong with me — my legs were too thick, my arms were too hairy, my smile was too gummy, my hips were too wide. I could find something wrong with every single part of me. This warped view of myself soon led to a quiet eating disorder and years of obsession around my body. While I have recovered and reached a place of forgiveness within myself, I know the relationship with my body is still a work in progress.

While the body positivity and self-love movements of recent times have filled me with joy, there are times when I find myself wondering where people like me fit into it all. Because I’m quiet. Because I’m shy. Because my confidence doesn’t fill the room. Because, in all honesty, the love I feel for myself isn’t always big and gooey and warm and endless. Some days it’s tiny. Some days, I have to work really hard to find any at all. While I have more love for myself now than ever, it doesn’t mean that some days aren’t hard. That’s the reality of being in a body that grows, changes and ages — like everyone else’s — but with its own story, with its own hiccups and blemishes.

No one knows what it’s like to be in your body, and no one has the right to tell you how to feel, act or exist in that body. You’re on your own journey. It’s your choice to share it or guard it closely, to be still with it or noisy, to laugh or cry at it — maybe sometimes both. Whatever you do, please take the time to marvel at it, to celebrate it, to love it. Take all the time you need.