i have been struggling with self image lately, im a bigger girl and it’s really messing with my head. i’ve started going on daily walks but a scary situation happened this past wednesday and i’m kind of terrified to go outside at the moment, it doesn’t feel safe to be outside. i’ve dealt with thyroid issues the past few years, but those have gotten better. it made it very easy to gain weight but darn near impossible to lose. i keep seeing all these girls on tik tok, instagram, and at my schools athletic events and i can’t help but with i was them. do y’all have any advice?

My great grandmother was around 92 years old when she passed away. Throughout my life I have seen her a lot since she lives relatively close (about 20-30 mins away). I moved away to florida for college in 2020. Fall of my freshman year in college covid was huge and my great grandmother wasn’t doing too well. Spring rolled around and my great grandmother had beaten covid and pneumonia. She was a very strong woman. I was about a month away from being home when she was put in the hospital again for covid symptoms. Everything seemed to be fine with her health but my mom asked me to facetime her cause she missed me. I facetimed her later that night and promised her I would see her in a month. She passed away about a week later while I was on spring break. It was slightly unexpected given her age and health condition. I was at the bar with my friends. Safe to say it changed my night around really fast. I was 3 hours away from my school with friends for spring break. My parents didn’t want to fly me all the way up the next day for the funeral and ruin the rest of my vacation because it was a decent amount of money to fly on such short notice. I watched the funeral from a room at my friends beach house. I couldn’t help but cry because of how awful I felt that I couldn’t be there. My regret isn’t that I wasn’t able to say bye. My regret is all the times I could’ve gone over there when i got older and had a car and chose not to because she lived so close and I thought I saw her enough with my family. When I got back home for summer break I went to her grave to honor the last promise I made to her. Just wish I could’ve did it in person.

• June 27, 2023