short thing #13

such a standard ‘love yourself’ musing

I have seen all the ‘be brave girl’ blogs and memes and status updates and tweets I care to see. I get it. I appreciate the sentiments and hope that they do truly touch those souls that need to be touched. They have helped me in times, for sure...

Often they are about one’s connectedness, one’s awareness, one’s grief, one’s children, one’s special needs children, one’s desire for love, for reciprocated passion, for intelligent conversation, for sisters (biological and universal), for natural therapies, for natural parenting, for natural living, for nature, for love, for souls, for body image, for women.

For self acceptance.

I’ve read these musings.

I’ve said I’ve taken their lessons on board.

It’s all kinda bullshit.

Because in some ways, we can’t learn awareness. We can’t learn to be self-accepting. We can’t learn to love. We can’t learn to be natural and nurturing and soulful.

We can’t think through these things.

Instead, we have to be these things. And not in some future I’m going to be more self-accepting new year’s resolution type sense. ‘Just now’ works just fine.

I haven’t, in all honestly, ever struggled with my weight or my body. I’ve struggled with accepting my weight and my body for what they are...

In my adult life, I’ve never been more or less than 10 kilograms above or below my ideal body weight. It’s really not that much for someone at my height. But I’ve never accepted it when I was either. When I was less I wanted to be even less. When I was more, I wanted to be less again.

I could never accept that shoestring straps were not designed for boobs of this size.  That fashion, although not something I ever, really cared about but being able to wear it if I wanted to was.

And now at 34 I see peers wanting the bodies of 20 year olds. I wonder if in craving the body they ‘possessed’ in their 20s they’d like to go back to the brains they possessed then, too. Would they like that level of knowledge? That level of experience? That level of understanding or awareness about the world?

You couldn’t pay me to go back to some of that stuff.

I think my body at 28, whilst breastfeeding, was the best body I ever had but hello, it is still my body. It’s not like I’ve got a different body now. Like I swapped it for this one. It’s the one I was born with. It’s the one I’m going to die with. It might have changed its shape. It might have different dimensions. Capabilities. Strenghts and weaknesses. But so does my brain.

So does my soul.

So yes, I’m sure I look like a mumsy now. I know I’m not as sexy as once I was. I no longer wake up next to hunky men whose bodies were to die for. Now I wake up with random stuffed toys and a little man who can sneak in in the night without my knowing, bringing a collection of sand with him.

Yes, now I prefer comfy undies. Jeans that hold the Caesarean lower tummy in. Leggings under skirts so I don’t get sore in between thigh skin. Sensible bras.

And I still get pimples. Bad hair. And I have had an incredible reversion to the grunge punk rock boots that I lived in in my teens. But I have no desire to go back to ‘that’ body. Certainly not back to that brain.

So yes, I have fat days. Yes I have skinny days. Yes I have days were I wish I had no boobs and I could go to the shops in a swishy dress without straps. Yes I get jealous of the spunky chicks in their bikinis I see at the beach all the time.

But this is what I’ve got.

And just now is all we’ve all got.

(c) Samantha Florence, 2012