LAURA INGRAM - PHOTOBIA (CULTURAL ESSAY)

Laura Ingram is a tiny girl with large glasses. She loves Harry Styles and Harry Potter.

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                                                            Photophobia
               
​               Maybe you're like me, all skinny legs with split ends and skinned elbows, the girl who padded her pastel training bra with pink Kleenex in seventh grade, the girl who shops in the children's department at nineteen. Or maybe you've always been bigger than your best friend, your brother, your cousin with eyes like ink blots. Maybe you face ableism on a daily basis as you wheelchair or other mobility aid; maybe you struggle to justify self-care to a society that ignores your health condition because it is not obvious to the eye. Maybe you have acne scars on your chin, stretch marks on your hips, grass stains on your heart.
                Let me offer you the simplest of secrets; when other people see your face, they don't notice blackheads or that birthmark you've always been embarrassed about. Other people notice the crinkles by your eyes when you crook your upper lip. When other people look at your legs, they don't see fat or skinny or scarred. They only see legs. 
                Consider this: not a single cell in your body can structurally exist without fat. Sixty percent of the human brain is fat. Adipose tissue is not a virus, bacteria, or tumor; it's integral as industry.
            You, just as much as any platonic pedestrian, own some attributes of summer. Someone loves to see slabs of sunlight slice your hair. Someone's fever dreams are filled with the freckles on your forearms.
              Your body is the basement where you counted down to your first kiss, the brownstone you cut from a catalog as a kid.
                Your body is the blistered backyard swing, the auditorium where you got an honor roll award. It may be peeling or plastered, but it keeps keeping.
                Your body is the tree you scaled as a child. Don't cut it down.