I am always reticent to discuss body image as a (relatively) thin woman. I am blessed by genetics to have spent all my life (since birth) as a thin child, teenager and now woman. It seems like the only ok issues to talk about in regards to weight are when you are attempting to lose. I come from a lengthy history of having doctors and in fact friends and family members (at times) telling me to eat more, to gain weight. When you have to put up your hand and admit that it is a struggle to do so… that you can (ever so luckily) eat and eat and the weight doesn’t stick but if you DON’T eat and eat and those pounds slip off a little there are consequences there really is no sympathy.
I find, personally that when I do lose weight I end up gaining health issues, my anemia returns, I get light headed and dizzy… irregular (can you imagine how happy that makes Ken who seems to slip right from, oh you are late? to OMG PREGNANT???) and ill. It can be a handful of pounds that attain that for me and it can be drastic and instant. But, in the past, the conversations regarding weight have turned quickly to “poor babies” and tiny violins (if you recognize the saying?) for someone who is visually looking closer to the ideal.
This has made me stop and wonder… where is my beauty in the eyes of others? There are (as I am sure is true for all women) days for me when I look in the mirror and all I see is the results of 4 pregnancies and growing slightly older. Those few stretch marks I try to wear as marks of honour and the changes from high school that appear minor to others are major to me.
Where someone else sees it as that skinny girl being overly worried or silly or demeaning to them I see it as me trying to love myself. There are days when I wish I could see myself as others see me. I want to see that the water weight around my middle is so minor, that gravity is not the cruel mistress it feels to be. I wonder at the compliment ” you look amazing for having had 5 kids”… am I the only one who wonders for a moment if that means that if I had 4 or 3 or 2 or even 1 I look horrible? And then… there are, for the most part, days that I do!
I have learned through buck teeth (seriously being called Bugs Bunny is just…), acne (so many meds), a bad perm (ok has anyone NOT had one of those) and other moments of relative levels of insecurity that there is beauty in me. I was blessed with parents who always told me I was pretty, with friends who were there with the make up brush to teach me how or the kind word about this outfit, those shoes, that haircut.
As I raise my own children, two of which are girls (of course) I look at them and see what I am sure my parents saw in me… beauty inside and out. I wonder at the models in the world for them… Barbie, the stars of today and I think that it is our job as mothers, sisters, aunts and more to show them the reality – the belly dancers with their lithe movements but not stick thin, the beautiful paintings of years gone by of beautiful curved hips and beauty in many sizes, shapes and shades.
I think we all struggle with the question of beauty… what size of chest is right? How flat is your stomach? What do you weigh? Do we care about the thoughts in our heads? The love in our hearts? The beauty of the soul? Well… we do, but what does the world throw up at us every day? It is not that you can make your family smile, that you can help a stranger in a moment of need, that when you go out you hold your head high. So what I find on those days in the mirror is that looking this way and that I see a woman of 33 proud years who has 5 kids, a marriage lasting over 11 years AND a combination of parts that culminate in 100% me…
I know there are others who would say I have it easy, I am well under 200 lbs with generous boobs… my 4 pregnancies and 5 children (ooo math) have resulted in minimal stretch marks and the weight did come off (in one case never came on… talk about a difficult pregnancy being told I needed to eat more when I couldn’t stop eating). But you don’t see me the way I see me. On my worst days I see every pound and inch where I don’t want them, breasts that have never defeated gravity (seriously what IS perky like???) and all the imperfections here and there.
It has taken many years and growing into myself (and my nose I do say) that has brought me to now. The me of now did nude and semi nude maternity photos (in the safety of my own home) and posted them up on deviantArt. That was a huge jump for me, beauty without a bra! For a girl who went from flat to a C-D right away I have worn bras everywhere but bed. I am stepping outside my comfort zone and trying to do fancier make up for fun, trying different hairstyles and looking internally to make sure that what I am saying, thinking and doing is beautiful first. My kids find me gorgeous in my pj’s my husband still says I am sexy in the nude… what more can I ask for? What more SHOULD I ask for?
What I want to challenge everyone to do is to step off that scale and look inside. Don’t stop your work to improve your appearance if you feel the need BUT focus on improving the inside even more. Spend a day in the pjs and realize that that is beauty… look in the mirror and see the journey and miracles you have experienced. And then put on those clothes that make you feel beautiful and realize that YOU ARE!
I have known and still know so many beautiful people in my life and no two are alike in shape, size, anything… it is painful when you hear a friend talk about how dissatisfied they are with themselves and their looks. Not one of us is ever 100% content with ourselves but to live and be happy in our own skin… THAT is my goal! I want Trinity and Echo to wake up each day and know that their beauty starts within, that there will always be someone who loves them and that in the world the opinion that matters the most is THEIR OWN! Would that we all could hold onto that truth… that in the end the world falls away and the one we have to be happy with and love is ourselves.
A secret guilty pleasure of mine is watching RuPaul’s Drag race and then chatting with it with my cousin Veronika… RuPaul has many catch phrases but his final words at each episode resonate with my (and I hope most people) the most… “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an Amen up in here?”… AMEN!
Me Myself and I