Without a Filter – The Story of My Body | Klári

Dear Norbi,

As easy as it was to leave that comment yesterday, starting this letter has been much harder. Lately I have been having long monologues with myself; there is so much inside me that wants to come out. After fifty, a woman sees herself and the world very differently.

Please forgive me if I cannot write as beautifully as the people whose stories I have read on your blog.

My thoughts wander, so this text probably will too. I don't really know where to begin, because I always thought of myself as a woman without much of a story. Days, months and years race by, and at fifty-three I suddenly realised that I was dissatisfied with my life. I felt that I had "put nothing on the table", achieved nothing that truly mattered, and I absolutely hated the woman looking back at me from the mirror. Part of that came from the fact that sometimes I could see my mother's features in my face, sometimes my sister's — when what I wanted was simply to see myself.

My body:

I don't think I have body dysmorphia. Fat is fat, cellulite is cellulite, and seventy-five kilos is a fact. It wasn't always like this.

Since childhood, with shorter and longer breaks, I have always done sport. I swam, ran, swam again, did bodybuilding. Even so, I was never that stereotypical "hot woman". Fate gave me a crooked nose, small breasts and a strong build. I was teased enough about those things as a teenager. At the time it hurt terribly, and I still remember specific situations, but I never spiralled into thinking I must be so awful that I needed therapy. It never caused problems in my relationships either.

I admit I did want to have my nose operated on, but when doctors explained what the procedure involved, I dropped the idea and learned to accept it as it was. So I knew — or felt — that I had beautiful eyes, those slightly fox-like eyes, and if I put on a smart suit and some makeup, men would turn to look at me.

Then I got married and had children — which is a kind of sport too 😊. Not the giving birth itself, but fortunately the years that followed were very active. I enrolled in college, studied, looked for work and tried to start a business. Somewhere along the way, though, I forgot about myself. My body became softer and the kilos started to accumulate.

My husband never said anything. He still liked what he saw. I didn't. Even so, I did nothing about it. My energy level was practically zero. I suppose that combination — together with something else I will never tell anyone — eventually led to there being no sex and no intimacy in my life for a very long time.

The softness and inactivity eventually pushed the scale to seventy kilos. I almost had a small heart attack when I saw the number. My husband surprised me with a gym membership. After a great deal of hesitation, I forced myself to start training again.

I already had seven years of previous experience, so I thought it would come back easily. It didn't. I found a trainer, and slowly but surely we carved away the excess from my body. I won't pretend it was easy — and I'm not talking about lifting weights. Many times I walked into the gym wondering: do I really need this at forty-five? Sometimes I cried during training, asking myself what on earth I was doing there among twenty-somethings.

Four years later, at forty-nine, I was in the best shape of my life: muscular, strong and proud of myself. I weighed fifty-seven kilos, the same as in secondary school. I wore size 36 clothes and even dared to go outside in denim shorts that barely covered my backside. I was happy. I had done it!

I even started thinking about entering some kind of masters or "mum" fitness competition the following year.

Then something snapped.

On New Year's Eve.

A crushing exhaustion and hopelessness settled over me. I felt unloved. I fell into a deep depression. I had no motivation. I no longer felt beautiful. I thought: what is the point of all this hard work if nobody wants me anyway?

My daughter had baked a cake and accidentally left it at our place. I ate the entire thing in one sitting. It didn't even cross my mind that I might give myself a sugar overdose 😊 or pass out from the huge amount of carbohydrates. I didn't feel guilty, even though as someone who had paid attention to healthy eating, I "shouldn't" have done it.

From that day on, I stopped caring. I no longer put the same energy into training. I started sliding downhill. I destroyed four years of work in six months.

From 57 to 80 kilos.

Even saying it feels awful.

That same year I suffered an injury that made every form of movement impossible. I had to wait a year for surgery. Then Covid came, along with sitting at home and being told you couldn't go anywhere.

Don't misunderstand me: I don't blame anyone or anything. I blame myself for looking the way I do, because I couldn't even make the effort to go for a walk in the nearby park.

Accept yourself as you are.

You hear it everywhere. And then you hear the exact opposite.

Do something for your body today. Me Too. Body shaming. Beach body. Discount cosmetic procedures. We could list all day the messages that influence the way people think about themselves.

So what am I supposed to do? Accept myself, go to the gym, or go under the knife? Who am I trying to please? Myself? My partner? Fashion?

And what if I feel fine in my own skin but know that living with excess weight is not especially healthy?

Actually, I don't feel fine with it. My joints hurt. My blood pressure and pulse are higher. I can't run after a bus. I'm reaching the point where even a sightseeing trip is difficult because I cannot comfortably walk more than two kilometres. And emotionally it hurts to look in the mirror and see what I have done to myself.

What I have accepted about myself:

My nose, as I wrote at the beginning. I would never let anyone touch my face now. So it stays a little long and a little crooked — although I still don't enjoy seeing it in profile photographs.

My breasts: small, but nicely shaped. I don't wear push-up bras because they feel like cheating.

I accept — and actually love — my wrinkles and my grey-silver hair. My relatives are fairly negative about the hair colour, because they think I should still be fox-red.

I accept, because I cannot change them, the age spots appearing on my skin.

What I don't accept and will have to do something about:

That extra weight, which is now "only" fifteen kilos. The pain and health risks that come with it. The sight of my fat body.

But now I am only ashamed in front of myself. I no longer care what strangers think when they see me. They don't know me. They don't know what I have been through.

I regret that when I was in the best shape of my life, I never had proper photographs taken of myself. But if you choose my story and the photo shoot really happens, I hope it will give me enough motivation to restart what I gave up four years ago.

As easy as it was to leave that comment yesterday, beginning this letter was difficult. Lately I have been having long monologues with myself. There is so much more inside me that wants to come out — much more than these two pages.

31 December 2021

I think too much and get lost in the vicious whirlpool of self-acceptance, self-realisation, self-assertion, self-criticism and selfishness. (That sounded almost beautiful.)

I have conclusions, but I think I'm waiting for some kind of confirmation. Especially when it comes to self-acceptance.

Then I saw Norbi's post. He was asking for stories on exactly this subject. Without a filter. I commented without thinking, and he responded immediately. A few days later I wrote my awkward little story.

Norbi suggested an artistic nude. Because I had questions and doubts, he invited me for an in-person conversation. His blog says that test shots might also be taken.

Oh God. What could that mean?

The psyche is strange. As soon as Norbi and I started chatting, something inside me began to move. I decided to schedule the shoot for January. Until then, I thought, I could pull myself together a little — emotionally and physically. I started dieting — yes, I know, "lifestyle change" — and now I swim two or three times a week.

At the same time, I began looking at myself differently.

When I stand in front of the mirror fully dressed, I don't think the overall picture is bad. I see an average woman in her fifties. But as I remove my clothes one by one, my defects seem to reveal themselves. I dissect my body.

Like a scanner or an MRI machine, I examined myself objectively from the top of my head to my toenails.

Grey hair — and thinning too, damn it. Wrinkles: part of ageing, not very deep yet. Expensive hyaluronic-acid creams did nothing. I drink collagen and mostly enrich the manufacturer. Dark circles under my eyes. I've already written about my nose.

My mouth. Nothing sexy about it. Not sensual at all — straight, forceful. Skin slightly sagging. A little double chin, wonderful. My neck — like a chicken neck, dear God.

On my shoulders, arms and back I can still see traces of the years of training. Those areas always responded well to exercise, so I have no problem with them. My torso has age spots, hooray. Let's not even talk about my stomach. It's fat and hangs over my underwear.

And my legs. If I could, I would exchange them completely for another pair. With a lower body this thick, I should at least have a 120-centimetre bust to balance it out. Being overweight is one thing, but it feels as if all fifteen extra kilos have settled right here. My lower legs are also disproportionately short compared with my thighs. My knees are thick, my ankles too. Even my GP once told me I had never had gazelle legs. My wide feet only bother me because I cannot wear pumps.

In the days before the consultation, I became increasingly excited. I planned to visit a beautician, a hairdresser and get waxed. Fine so far — but what on earth would I wear? The classic female question.

I started browsing sexy clothes and lingerie online and went into every possible shop. But each time I was hit by the thought that perhaps my body should no longer be dressed up in costumes like that.

Then the opposite feeling would arrive: the sight of those clothes and the memories excited me so much. How wonderful it would be if I could wear them again.

Then another flash: at my age I shouldn't even be thinking about this. A portrait with a bit of retouching will be enough.

Of those conflicting feelings, the latter won. So I chose a completely ordinary outfit.

…

"So now we're going to make a beautiful artistic nude."

What???

Now?

Me?

No, no, no. Absolutely not.

No man has seen me naked in fifteen years. I deliberately wore underwear that would give me no temptation whatsoever to take it off — the arguments poured out of me.

"Am I right in sensing that what you really want is to see yourself again?"

He didn't have to persuade me for long.

Really, there was no problem. I don't feel embarrassed in front of a doctor either. The blouse came off quickly, then the bra. That part was easy.

Then the trousers.

And I saw myself in a full-length mirror.

I wanted to cry. I froze. After that I couldn't really relax.

I think Norbi also realised that my body wasn't ready for the kind of photography we had discussed, so he took only portraits of my face. Interestingly, my favourite image is the one where my nose looks longest — and it turned out my mouth isn't completely straight either. The difficult part is that in every image I can feel how tense I was.

Meeting Norbi stirred up my entire inner world. I thought about that one morning hour all day. I tried to replay everything we had talked about.

I wanted to scream at myself for being such a damn lazy person — someone who had suffered for years from feeling unloved and still wasn't able to change her own life.

That evening, 2 December, after spending hours crying and feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I had finally reached the point where I had to move. Otherwise my soul would die.

Part of the reason I stopped exercising was a lack of motivation. Unfortunately, success stories and motivational speeches have never inspired me. I believe motivation has to come from within. Until I have that almost painful desire to achieve something, I only half-study, half-train, half-live.

But now I have goals again. I continue swimming, and I can feel that I may soon return to the gym.

I read almost every post on Norbi's blog, and what surprised me was that in every story I found something that connected my fate with the writer's.

Now I very much want that photograph. In fact, in theory I have already gone further: I want to try everything.

Based on everything above, you might think I place too much importance on the body. I absolutely don't.

I have two mottos:

"What is the body worth if the soul is rotting?"

and

"You may be beautiful — but are you good?"

I don't think I will ever be completely satisfied with my body. But I am trying to accept it with all its flaws, and one thing I can say about myself with complete certainty: I am a good person.

And that matters more than anything.

11 January 2022 – It began…

I know Norbi doesn't like the idea, but I wanted a "before" photograph.

One that would hurt.

The photo shoot was preceded by a long conversation. Sometimes I feel Norbi knows me better than I know myself. I had already undressed my soul in front of him, so removing my clothes this time was not as difficult as the first time.

I tried to relax, but at first my posture was very rigid. Then somehow something released. My brain switched off. I stopped hearing the clicks of the camera.

Suddenly the series was finished.

And so was the nude.

The nude I would hang on the wall if I had someone to share it with.

At the same time, the "before" photographs — seeing reality in a full-body frame — affected me much more later at home, when I zoomed in, than they had during the shoot.

So the conflict between my emotions has softened a little, but I still have work to do on myself.

My journey has begun.

For three weeks after the photo shoot, I barely slept. Memories of experiences, sentences and movements kept racing through my head.

Heart — compress — ignite — exhaust.

Breathing exercise.

It always helps when I'm under heavy stress or having a panic attack. But I don't experience this situation as stress. I see it as a task I have to complete.

And to do that, I have to put down fifteen years of hurt.

When I breathe in, it feels as though I draw in the energy around me. Then as I slowly exhale, I push that energy down through my body until, finally, I release the negative feelings through my pelvis.

Perhaps partly because I have lost another five kilos since then.

But I still cannot imagine a man wanting to touch me.

Among the photographs there was one that hit me very hard. Worse even than the dissatisfaction I feel about my legs. It was the area between them.

"My God, it looks like a giant papaya!" was my sudden thought.

Another part of my body I had to come to terms with.

Unlike the other areas, however, the solution came strangely easily.

I drew a papaya and used the drawing to sew a plush pillow and a small palm-sized papaya. I spent many hours sewing on the seeds and stroking the fabric, smiling a great deal because, when you think about it, I was basically sewing a vulva.

Then I bought an actual papaya.

I had never eaten one before, so I had no idea whether I would like it. Slowly, almost ritualistically, I washed it, peeled it, cut it open, reached inside, scooped out the seeds with my hands and tasted it.

And it was delicious.

So I like papaya.

My papaya. :-)

And I created a page called Papaya Therapy, where I warmly welcome anyone who is unhappy with their own garden.

---

Because down there, too, every one of us is different.

Brand photography – details.

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For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.