Let it ALL Hang Out!!!

Like most people I have a host of body image issues. At any given moment I can gnit-pick myself to literal pieces. My thighs are too big, my nose is too pudgy, my neck's too long, my legs are too short... the list goes on and on and on. And on a bad day it's frightening what kind of mental meat grinder I can put my body through. On my good days (which fortunately far out number the bad) I simply ignore my negative thoughts. Like most things, with age has come more "I really don't give a damn" and I'm more apt not to wollow in bad body image moods since I have more pressing issues to attend, like being an adult; However they still creep in from time to time. And to this effect comes the mental path my mind walked today as I spent a lovely afternoon in Statesboro with my dear lifelong friend, Sarah. We took her beautiful baby daughter out to exchange a few items and do some minor looking. For both of us I believe it was a break from the mundane, type of excursion. As we made our way in and out of stores I took particular notice of people, their clothes, their bags, their shoes. And I came home and looked through some profiles on Facebook as well. What I've observed has inspired me to continue on toward a better "mental me".


Of course I have friends and see people who I believe to be attractive and well maintained. They look and dress nicely and are active healthy people. Then there are those who just absolutely frighten me with their bleakness. Their hair "roots" are far outgrown and the ends of their wooly shags look as though a dog has chewed them off. I've spotted some women in tiny shirts with bulging muffin tops that almost make me shriek. And then... there are those women who are desperately clinging to the women they once were. You know the ones! They've gained about 75 pounds in the last ten years and wear bows in their pony tails and a track suit (modern day version of the 90's windsuit) pretending, desperately clinging to the mental image they have of themselves before they subconsciously let themselves go. You might catch this woman dropping her daughter off at a dance class or mirroring her little girl's pageant talent routine in the audience of her 150th beauty pageant in 6 years. She seems quite content and happy as she does not utilize full length mirrors any longer. Perhaps she's done the crash diet merry-go-round, eating celery and drinking Tab and eventually she caves (like most of us do) and resorts back to Diet Coke with a #3 at McDonald's. Those women are the saddest to me. Those whose lives are filled with running on junk to fuel their families lives. Women who care so much about how everyone else in their family looks that she cannot see what she's become. She can't see the misery in her clothing or hear her body's desperate cry for help. Doritos and Dr. Pepper are staples in her cabinet and she believes this is alright because her husband is a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy and her kids don't like bananas or broccoli. The dresses they wear to church on Sundays are neat and pressed and pretty so that they might worship their God fashionably. And inside of the bodies God built for them are bulging arteries, swolen joints, escalating blood pressure, suffocating cells and deep self-loathing sadness. This sort of misery is palpable... and toxic.


In the last five years I've caught myself a few times letting myself off the hook so-to-speak. I'd move up a pant size and say to myself "...it's ok, it's only one size". And then I'd realize shortly afterword that I'd be saying the same thing to myself this time next year, and the next, and the next. It's a tiny line to cross but it brings a heaping helping of consequences. I struggle mightily to balance the vanity of body image with the desire for better health. I certainly want to look and feel attractive but as the years progress I wave good-bye to bits and pieces of that desire. I've come to see that the world outside my door can be far more distracting and beautiful when I worry less about how I look in it and more about how I feel in it.