Caragan

I'm 26, and I have two kids. I had my first when I was 20 - I got married at a young age, had babies at a young age. Through pregnancy and postpartum, I had a hard time liking my body. And now that my kids have gotten older, I've come to a body that I feel comfortable in, but I still have all those images in my head of what society says my body should look like. Even with shaving, I hate shaving my whole body, but it's always been more about what men want - or, what I assume men would want.⠀
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I've been through a kind of sexual awakening; I was in a relationship from the time I was 14, got married at 18. He was in the military, I was raising babies and getting my degree. When I started my career, we separated - and it's been like a quarter life awakening. Dating for the first time, getting away from just being a mom - I didn't know who I was.⠀
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I had to learn how to be vulnerable with my body. There were so many things I was self conscious about, since I'd only been with one person - my stretch marks, my cellulite, my breasts. I was only in my early 20s, but I'd lived this whole life as a wife and mother. I had to build my own confidence, which is why for my 25th birthday, I shaved my head - it was a way for me to be more vulnerable. It was trial by fire, like 'You're gonna learn to be comfortable with this.' And it ultimately felt more like me than longer hair ever did. ⠀
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The things I had were supposed to make me happy, and they didn't. Leaving my relationship was really hard, especially since there was nothing technically wrong with it; I had to become the bad guy, but I had to shed the codependency I'd learned from my mother and find out who I really was.