Epiphany

I hate my body. Except I love it.

These are the warring factions that have been inside me for pretty much ever. I know there’s a whole movement about body image. I get that. I don’t really care because I’m talking about me. And you, because you feel the same way I do, you know you do. All my life I’ve struggled with my weight. When I’m overweight, I let that fact dictate how I feel about everything. And I do mean everything. What I weigh impacts whether I want to go out or stay in, participate or not, get naked or not.

And don’t even get me started on the self-loathing that goes along with it; the running commentary in my head. I don’t want you to see me naked, I’m fat. I can’t wear that dress, I’m fat. Why do I have no self-control? Why am I eating this again? Well, I’ve already ruined today, I might as well really ruin it. Why can she eat anything she wants and I can’t? I wish my stomach looked like that. These pants used to fit. Dangit. I’m worthless.

That was in my head for about 25 years. Until, by the grace of God, I came to understand the value of myself in a different way. It took a loooong time to get here. I’m not “there” yet. But I’m not where I used to be, which you might recognize.

I was a chunky kid. Big thighs, big ankles. Not athletic by any stretch of the imagination. I’d rather read. I don’t know when I started eating to feel happy. I just remember doing it. And yet eating makes me big and being big makes me sad so I guess I’ll eat. Why not, let’s just throw in the towel. WHY is the way I feel about myself tied to my body? Why should it be? It makes no sense.

I have a scar on my right hand where I was getting my bike out of the shed one day when I was probably 12, 13, something like that. The shed was really just a lean-to; covered on the sides and top with corrugated tin because we stored firewood and the mower under there. And the bikes, to keep everything out of the rain. Anyway I was getting my bike out one day and sliced my hand down the corrugated tin and it eventually healed into a perfect little raised line about a centimeter long. I remember it very clearly for whatever reason; maybe because it sliced my skin so perfectly (up until then I’d only scraped knees and elbows; no real injuries) and it was kinda fascinating to see inside there, and maybe because it happened before I’d really even realized it. My Uncle Hubert and Aunt Marcelle were over for coffee that evening. Mom and Dad used to have them come over for coffee every so often and they would sit and chat and it made me happy to know that they were happy. Sometimes I’d listen to their conversation, even if I didn’t understand it, and sometimes I’d stay in my room and just hear them laughing and talking, and sometimes I’d go outside and leave them to it, like that evening. They were good friends and it was comfortable, hearing them laugh and talk together.

I tell you this because it’s part of me. I look at that scar and I remember Uncle Hubert and how I loved to smell him smoking his pipe, before he got smart and quit. It’s not pretty, but it’s me. I have a spot on the bottom of my right foot that hurts sometimes when I step on it wrong; it’s from when I stepped on a cigarette butt in front of the old Kmart one night while Mommy was shopping and Daddy and I waited outside so he could smoke. It wasn’t his cigarette butt; he was still smoking his, but somebody else had thrown theirs to the ground and I walked my little bare feet right over it. I cried and Daddy picked me up and held me and I could smell his t-shirt with the dirt and oil and grease on it from having changed the oil in the blue truck earlier that day. He let me “help” him do that; crawl underneath the truck and watch the black black oil drip down into the pan.

Carter asked me what the scars were on my hip last week. They’re stretch marks and they are totally unfabulous. If he’d come out when he was supposed to come out, a week and a half earlier, I wouldn’t have had them. But he didn’t, and I got bigger, and bigger, and I have the stretch marks to prove it.

My mother makes carrot cake like you have never tasted carrot cake. Seriously, whatever way you think yours is good, hers is SO SO much better. She does this thing where she sugars the pan, and then when the cake bakes it comes out all wonderful and sweet, and then the icing. Oh. My. Gosh. The icing. Only Mom can make cream cheese frosting like this, and you put it with the carrot cake, and it’s unreal. I eat far too much of it, and I can’t resist it when she makes it. She makes me this fudge-ribbon cake for my birthday that’s all chocolatey goodness and cream cheese ribbon (holy cow, maybe there’s a theme here) and I can eat that whole thing with no help. My thighs are a testament to that carrot cake, and that fudge ribbon cake.

These hands have caught vomit, wiped away tears, checked for fevers, and sewn Halloween costumes. My boobs are pathetic floppy reminders that I couldn’t breastfeed my own children, yet they drive my husband out of his mind. My booty is rife with cellulite but my booty has sat on hard bleachers through baseball games, and on horses, and through cold nights around bonfires. My tummy has rolls. So. Many. Rolls. My rolls actually have rolls. My children made those rolls and stretched out my tummy and left their mark, and they lay their heads on my soft tummy now when we snuggle in the bed reading books. The skin under my arms? My bat wings. Flap flap flap. These arms have held cranky babies, crying loved ones, and toted groceries to feed my family. They’ve hauled firewood to the truck from the woods and they’ve had kitty cats fall asleep in them.

My body has stories. My body has been USED, people. It’s not pretty. It’s not skinny. It’s too lumpy in places, too fat in places, too wrinkly in places, too rough in places. But it’s beautiful, because it’s what God gave me to walk around in, to love in, to help in, to comfort in, to be happy and sad in. Love your body too, no matter what shape it is. Stop trying to make it fit into whatever size you think will make you happy. If it feels good to exercise, then do it. If you have a few more pounds this year than you did last year, then so be it. Buy bigger pants. Look at what God has given you in this body and what you’ve done with it. It's a beautiful, strong, amazing body.  It doesn't need to "look good" in pictures.  It's too busy living life.