Body Neutral

Let me start this off right…

I appreciate my body. I enjoy all the curves and soft parts and even the wobbly bits.

I love that I can call my body “fat” and say that with a mischievous twinkle in my eye and know that that might make you a little uncomfortable. (Because I like to stir that pot sometimes…)

I love that I have reclaimed this shell of myself and that I have chosen to be comfortable in my own skin.

I can be “me” without thinking that “your” opinion shapes me.

I shape me.

A bit of background first…

It’s no secret that women have been objectified.

This means that society has been taught that women are objects.

Sexual objects in the background of dance videos, breasts and bodies selling cars and lipstick and beer.

I reject that. We can all reject that. Everyone deserves better.

Women are more than a reflection of what others think we “should” be.

Even with all that truth, somehow it’s easier to reject that in a society than it is to reject that internally.

For a long time, I had this miserable gremlin on my shoulder suggesting that I will only have value once my clothing size shrinks.*

My value will only come when the scale shows some arbitrary number.

My own turning point was having kids.

These little tidbits of love that I pushed out of my body, exposed and vulnerable in this world, only to be left with me for a mother, totally clueless about how to raise them.

It was hard not to see life through my new kid-filter lenses.

“Is this okay for them to see?”

“How the heck am I going to explain THAT?!”

As my littles became old enough to watch me watching myself, I was on uneven ground.

I didn’t want them to listen to the gremlin on my shoulder.

I wanted better for them. I wanted them to run and jump and play and live LIFE without that terrible cretin weighing them down.

The best litmus test for me was “Would I want my kids to have these thoughts rolling around in their own heads about themselves one day?” Or “Would I say this about my friend if I saw her naked?” The answer was ALWAYS no.

I chose to fight those terrible words.

I made up positive ones instead.  

I unfollowed what I needed to unfollow.

(You know the ones… that leave you feeling a touch… not… right)

For some time, I just faked it.

When my kids saw me naked, I acted like the body-embracing, curve-loving woman that I wanted to be.

And my mindset slowly changed.

I began a love affair with my own beautiful body.

Plot twist

And then my health got worse.

I spent most of 2016 lying down.

And because of those miserable antibodies chewing up my body, my muscles weren’t working properly.

I was no longer able to rely on my body-positive fall back words –“Strong” and “Capable”– because I wasn’t.

And I had to – HAD to –  accept that I still had value.

My body still had value… not because it was strong or able.

Because those didn’t apply.

But my body had value because I am a person.

I still have value even in my inabilities and “conventional imperfections”.

As it turns out – the outside genuinely does not add value to us as humans, anyhow… so can we just agree and move on…? The outside actually doesn’t matter.

So – here I am… a woman whose shape is different from the “fitspo” feed…

with the audacity to love the skin I’m in…

embrace the fact that, at present, my body takes up more space than (perhaps) yours does…

a woman who has reclaimed “fat” to be a simple – harmless – adjective, and not a judgement of my value and worth.

And – with alllllllll of that, to show up for life, be present and love myself.

Now – here is where it gets gritty for me…

I am ready for a change.

I am ready to be able to run and jump and play easier than I can right now.

I am ready to stretch and move and get sweaty and push myself and have my heart beat faster and then want to die but then keep going and be so glad that it’s over. And then – like birth – choose to do it again because you forget how much friggin’ hard work it is until the next time you are doing it.

And I don’t know how long my body will have this ability. The nature of this auto-immune beast is that it has it’s ups and downs.

This is the most important part…

I want my body to change. But I am not doing it for you. I am doing it for me. I am not doing it so that my clothing size changes and I become “conventionally beautiful”. I am doing it so I can live a long life with the people I love. I am not going to look at myself in my workout clothes and see how they are tighter than the last time I put them on and berate myself for my extra pounds. I am going to be thinking about how I would rather be watching netflix and drinking coffee on the couch, but make myself do it anyway.

So while this gloriously curvaceous woman hops on the treadmill and compares it to hell, as anyone might, I need you to know that this isn’t about my value, it’s about my life.

I won’t betray my newfound love affair of body-neutrality for the world’s tantalizing whispers of self-hate. I just won’t.

Maybe my outside will change. …But maybe it won’t. Maybe my heart will beat stronger and my lungs will breath deeper and my muscles will stretch longer.

I just need you to know that you can be okay with that – because I am.

*fill in the blank