My legs, as of a few hours ago. I can thank my Swedish blood and life-long aversion to the sun for having legs almost as white as the wall.

With less than a week to go until my twenty-seventh birthday (whoa–that sounds like a real grown-up kind of age), something happened that I never expected: I feel in love with my legs.

My legs and I have had a bit of a rocky history. I remember being thirteen and hearing a friend complain about her calves. I had no idea I was even “supposed” to worry about my calves, but soon I did. Then I heard people complaining about their ankles, and quickly decided mine didn’t measure up. In high school, a friend made (what I’m sure he thought was) an innocent joke about my having fat knees, and so I started worrying about those, too. By the time I made it to college, I had little love for my lower extremities.

And then Celiac Disease reared its ugly head, unbeknownst to me. By my twenty-first birthday, not only did I not like the way my legs looked, but we were in a constant battle and often they were in too much pain (along with the rest of me) to really function properly. It got to the point where I had to make special arrangements with professors so I could skip class when I was in too much pain to make the ten minute walk across campus.

Bit by bit, however, things started to get better. In July 2005 I got my miracle diagnosis, and within days I could walk without pain. Slowly I became more active, and increasingly grateful for my ability to walk. But while I appreciated my legs for being able to take me places, I still felt cheated in a way. How come I couldn’t run without getting injured? Why were all these other people I knew able to do things that I couldn’t? And why was I still unhappy with the appearance of my calves/ankles/knees/whatever?

One hour and over 800 steps later, an amazing view over the valleys surrounding Petra.

So imagine my surprise when, just a few days ago, I was blissing out in the sun after roaming for miles through Petra, Jordan, and scrambling up boulders to get a great view. I was tired, sure, but my legs–my legs–had carried me well over ten miles already that day, and had a few more left in them. I patted them and said thank you (yes, out loud), and realized they’d gotten rather strong over the last few months, too.

Aesthetically, are they exactly what I’d design for myself if I were to start from scratch? No. But at this point, I don’t really care. They’ve taken me to amazing, beautiful places, from Big Sur to Senegal to remote monasteries in Turkey. They’ve allowed me to sit and meditate and explore different yoga poses. They’ve gone on walks with my niece and taken strolls with my husband. They help me ride my bike and explore ancient sites and run errands without using a car.

It’s taken a lifetime, but I can joyfully and honestly say, I love my legs.

My early 20s were pretty tough in many ways. I was struggling to understand what my health obstacles were, and how to live with them. I was in an incredibly destructive relationship. I had no sense of where I really wanted to go or what I wanted to do with my life. And because of all this emotional muck, I turned my attention largely to food (the extra sugary, extra fatty, extra animal-based variety), alcohol (I love my friends from my bar back in Philly, but maybe that’s not the best place for a default hangout), and buying stuff (I have the credit card statements to prove it). This isn’t to say I had no healthy habits, but I certainly looked outward for satisfaction.

Here’s the great news: my mid-20s, so far, are awesome. I understand Celiac Disease, how it affects my body, and how to handle it–and it’s really pretty darn easy, for the most part. I am in a loving, inspiring, healthy relationship with the man of my dreams, and we both happily put in the effort required to keep it running to smoothly. I have returned to the very things I loved when I was ten: words. travel. the environment. Satisfaction now bubbles up from inside (even though I do have my frustrations, certainly).

This return to my true self has been so exciting, and rather amusing. I’m lucky–it only took me fifteen years to get back here. What I keep noticing (despite all the “window-shopping” I do online) is how much less stuff I desire. I know that I am not my belongings, a point that was made abundantly clear when I had to fit everything for fifteen months into two suitcases. I took tons of stuff to Good Will, threw out things that no longer served a purpose and weren’t in good enough quality to pass along, sold some things on CraigsList, and gave things away. The rest went into storage.

What makes me laugh is thinking about what is in storage now. Some of it is definitely worth saving–all my kitchen goodies that I inherited from Mormor; my king size comforter (surprise secret to a happy relationship: get a comforter too big for your bed. It really helps with that whole cover-hogging problem); art I’ve collected; my books. Though I did a great job winnowing my belongings, there are other things that I feel I could easily get rid of now, but still felt too attached to then.

All in all, it’s been incredibly freeing. When Michael and I do finally settle down Stateside, I am confident our home will have much less stuff, and instead a carefully selected collection of things that really mean something to us. (Mostly) Losing the desire to acquire has left me with so much time, money, and energy to spend on things that really matter to me. It’s much easier to pay off credit card debt and buy the tools that make a healthy life easier–like a used VitaMix and oodles of supplements–when I’m not stocking up on, well, to be honest, I don’t really even know what I used to spend all that money on.

To be clear, I by no means live an ascetic lifestyle. I just try to be more conscious about how I spend the resources I have available, not only in terms of how my choices affect my life, but also in terms of the environmental impact. I have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I feel like I’m taking definitive steps towards the life I want to lead.

It may have been one of the best practices of my life. As I removed as many external distractions as I could, and the music provided a white noise of sorts, I found myself filled with calm and self-forgiveness. Not that I’d done anything wrong, really, of late. But this seemed to be a manifestation of the “self-acceptance” mantra from a few days ago, but taken to new heights. I was positively flooded with a sense of love for who I am. There seems to be such a stigma against self-love, likely for fear that it borders too closely on narcissism, but I think that fear is extremely detrimental. The belief that any of us is better than another is dangerous; self-love is beautiful and powerful.

I’m not quite sure why things came together that way last night. Maybe it was a combination of factors–a rewarding day at work, great news via twitter (more on that later), and a regular, conscious attention on my health. Whatever it was, it was powerful, and I hope I can recapture it again in the future.

Oh, and a little bonus–my downward dog asana is finally approaching a point I’m happy with. That simple little pose has been a challenge for me, but the more time I spend with it every day, the better we get along.

I began by setting an intention for my practice, and thereby, for the day. A few different possibilities passed through my mind, but I kept coming back to one phrase, reluctant to embrace it: Self-acceptance. Before I even brought my palms together in front of my heart, I knew this would be a challenge. But I finally accepted self-acceptance, and kept returning to that phrase/concept throughout the salutations.

My dear friend (and designer of this site), Mel, is currently engaged in a 100 day project geared towards discipline and wellness. She has committed to doing 300 bows every morning in the Dahn Yoga tradition, and is tracking the experience here. I’m slowly reading through her blog and can recognize a lot of overlap, particularly in this post from Day 3.

And so it is that even more challenging that trying to wrangle myself into a half-acceptable downward dog was the experience of accepting that my downward dog, for today, was lousy. Tomorrow it will be less lousy, and yesterday I didn’t attempt it at all. And that it what matters.