Having just read your first post-explant essay, I was curious to see how your consciousness had evolved since then. Once again, I am impressed at your insights and the skill with which you offer them.

My only objection is to the word choice of “fake.” I assume you mean it for yourself alone — that your implants felt like something false and foreign in yourself (your self), and that excising them was a necessary step to claiming your integrity.

But other selves make other choices, and for more different reasons than any one of us is able to imagine. Body alterations, whether permanent as surgery and tats or temporary as clothes and makeup, reflect the way we choose to look and feel. Do you really want to suggest that someone else’s reconstructive surgery has made her less authentic?

That aside, this story was quite powerful to me. I especially appreciated your conversations with your younger self and explorations of how that child’s body image was shaped. Communing with our younger (and older, future) selves is work well worth doing.