I’ve never had a good relationship with my body, and today, I’m reuniting with the therapist who brought me back from the dead when I broke down a decade ago.

I got an e-bike and am learning to use it, and this time, I need to confront my body issues and stay with it.

They call it “body shaming,” the name came from women sick of being made to feel bad about the way they look. It applies to men too, I guess.

I think this will be a shorter engagement than the last time – we met twice a week for three or four years. I’ve never taken care of my body, nor liked it very much.

I’ve always seen myself as ugly and misshapen.

My father and I warred relentlessly about my  bedwetting and my refusal to even go to gym classes or try out for any sporting team. It got so intense we mostly stopped speaking when I was eleven years old. We never did patch it up.

I just never thought my body was capable; I didn’t take care of it.  I was terrified of physical activity involving other boys or men.

When I was young, I smoked and drank. When I got old, I had open-heart surgery and diabetes 2.

It isn’t just that I want to overcome my very considerable fear of the new bike – something that can be dangerous as well as counter-productive. And I’m not sure why it has been so difficult for me to take better care of myself.

I’m guessing my father has something to do with it, but it’s time I confronted it, understood it, and dealt with it. Maria suggested I call the therapist who knows me well and who I trust completely.

I forget that therapists aren’t seeing people right now, so we’ll talk on the phone this afternoon. After that, I hope to ride my bike for an hour.

I was treated for anxiety and other issues on and off for 30 years, and I don’t have panic attacks anymore, and I have found love in my life and freedom and meaning in my work.

I dealt with a lot of issues in my therapy, and that saved me, but we never got to this one.

As I get ready to have some heart work done in the hospital on Monday and hopefully strengthen my heart and my ability to take care of my body, I want to understand what is happening.

I want to continue the never-ending work to heal, to be better and stronger, and come to peace with my body and take better care of it. I don’t want to be starting at this expensive bike in three months, feeling guilty that I’m not using it more.

I want to do better by my body and see if I can learn to love it in the way I am learning to enjoy the rest of me.

Since my therapy ended, I haven’t once felt the need to go back until now.

That’s been the pattern of my life. I’m not one for indoor exercise or stationary bikes or gyms. I get bored. I don’t want to ride my new bike only on quiet roads and parking lots. I want to ride it where I live.

I like the feeling of this bike, of being outdoors, in nature and the world.

I want to ride it where I live and take some pride in my body and trust it more.