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I really needed to read this today, not because I feel out of place at the gym anymore but because I felt like I didn't belong when on holiday with my partner and her family.

I always joke saying I'm her "bit of rough" and boy do I feel that when around her family. They're all middle class from a long line of middle class people and are so unaware of their privilege. No matter how I tried to fit in I felt like I didn't, like I was wearing a mark which let everyone know I didn't belong, even though they were really nice to me.

Thank you for this peice of writing I think it will help me work through these feelings for next time I see them all.

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Ah, solidarity! I felt this way with the families of previous partners, especially in my 20's. Could never figure out the "rules," but now I finally realize rules were never really a thing at all.

My relationship with my husband's mother, though -- that's wildly different, despite the fact that she's more formal and conservative than any of my previous partners' families were. She actually finds my "roughness" quite charming, often to the complete confusion of the son she raised. :)

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The longer I spend with them the easier it does get. I think because we only see them once or twice year, that's what gets me. I do shock her dad sometimes when he realises I can hold my own in many conversations about history, economics and "human nature". Her family is big so that's probably the most overwhelming part of it, there were 15 of us all there.

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“Anything that makes you more body makes you more yourself” A wonderful deep bit of prose! I experience the Holy Ghost as emanating from my bowels. The Greek word that denotes that place in John 7:37-39 is also translated as womb. When it says that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, it’s a visceral experience making you even more alive and presently embodied. Years ago I was told by someone immersed in New Age and eastern stuff he felt the goal was to drop and transcend the body. I said in reply - “ I don’t know about that, Jesus took his with him when he left.”

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This is a great essay, and very perceptive. My equivalent was swimming, and I need to get back in the pool.

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I love this article. It reminds me that when I was working long hours and my son, then a teenager, was really depressed, I bribed him with the promise of an overseas trip if he came to the gym with me. He did come to the gym, and as he worked out and got stronger, he got happier, and more connected with the community around him. So the path to self acceptance was Body.

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