My body loves me and I love my body.

Loyalty is a better description than admiration.

You may have spent years disliking a body that went on doing night shifts for you, carrying off illnesses you never learned the names of, showing up for a decade of mornings without being asked politely.

Affection is hard to summon on demand and impossible to fake convincingly. Gratitude is easier and usually does the same work.

Pick one part that has been quietly on your side — the hands, the eyes that got you through a book last week — and let it stand in for the whole. Loving all of it at once was never the entry requirement.