If You Tell a Lie

by Lucinda Berry

You couldn’t stay stuck in trauma forever. That’s what my mom made me promise when she died: “Don’t you dare use this as a reason to throw your life away, Thera. You hear me?”

The best way to live your life was to learn to love yourself—really, truly love yourself—and accept yourself exactly as you were. Nothing broken in need of fixing. Perfectly whole. So, that’s exactly what I’d done. Learned to love who I was and fall in love with my body.