Story of Beauty
Please sit with me as I ruminate on the topic of beauty. I wish we could share a glass of wine as we go over this sensitive and much debated topic. Understand that I will go over this topic from a woman’s point of view and with my own stories to inform my opinion.
In the last year I have spent countless hours training, running, counting calories and in self-restraint. I made mistakes and I did things right. I indulged in binges and I had struggles with not eating enough to fuel my body. I had personal triumphs and I also ended up in the emergency room. Why? Well it all started with a girlfriend posting pictures of me on facebook. She tagged me as one is apt to do when posting pictures of friends. I saw the pictures and almost wept in disgust, denial and embarrassment. That is not me! Is it? I untagged the pictures. She, probably assuming something had gone wrong in the tagging process, tagged me again. Yet again I saw my undeniably fat face linked to my name and again I clicked that button to relinquish me from that painful association. Guess what, friends and family?! Yep, you got it. She tagged me again and I gave up, I resigned…she was right after all. That hateful picture was me. And then not long after another girlfriend tagged me. It was my birthday and she had taken pictures. One of them was this beautiful image of Tobin enticing me to come bounce with him on the trampoline. Instead of seeing the beauty in the picture all I could see was how tired, over weight and ugly I looked. I did not untag myself this time. I simply sat staring at that picture loving the image of my son, hating my own image and yet not willing to untag myself as the memory was precious despite what I looked like and I wanted to hold on to that precious moment.
That was my tipping point. I was done seeing myself and feeling shame and disgust. I had a goal, I had an image of perfection in my mind and that was the image I was going to achieve. I had no clue that my image of perfection was unobtainable. I am a wise, mature, smart cookie, so why was I unaware that my personal goal was unobtainable? Because, frankly, I had very little clue about how many of the images we see in media are altered and how many hours it takes to alter them. So back to the beginning of my post: I spent countless hours in pursuit of my unobtainable dream. I dreamed of beauty and perfection. I dreamed of large breasts, creamy unmarred skin, and a beautifully flat stomach. I worked my ass off and became an athlete, I lost 54 lbs in the process. I went from a size 12 (on the verge of 14) to a size 2. I look like a completely different woman. I feel like a completely different woman. So are you now thinking that I must have felt beautiful? Perfect? Womanly? Hold on, here comes the surprise ending.
I felt shocked and disappointed. My stomach was/is not flat. Oh sure it looks flat underneath my shirt but it is a softly rounded thing with velvet stretched skin. I have stretch marks. I have the scars of two C-sections and a still birth. My breasts are no longer perky and pert. I thought, no, I knew, that if I simply lost enough weight these things would go away. I stood naked in front of a full length mirror gazing at myself and wept. The image of perfection and beauty I had expected to see was not there. I had been duped. I felt almost cheated and tricked. Mostly I was bewildered. What had I done wrong? What had I done differently than those perfect women gracing our tv screens, movie theaters and magazines? Why the hell didn’t I look like one of them? Yes, okay, I know I have crazy kinky hair and elfin ears that stand off from my head in a wacky salute but my body that I had worked so hard on was not supposed to have wrinkles and scars. Ladies and gentlemen, my expectations had been vastly skewed by media. As it turns out even photographs of the most beautiful super models are air brushed. I read once (wish I could remember where) that a woman’s self-esteem takes 48 hours to recover after reading a freaking beauty magazine! Women on tv and in the movies roll out of bed with perfect hair and makeup. I roll out of bed practically drooling with my eyes almost swollen shut and my hair in a perfectly terrifying mix of afro Mohawk and, yes, with stretch marks, sagging skin, and scars on my belly. Women pluck their eyebrows (I am not exempt from this particular beauty routine), plump their lips, stretch their skin with injections of poison and go under the knife. For what? For this skewed vision of beauty. This unobtainable goal of perfection. And then there is another sin I am also guilty of. We comment, I have commented more than once on how men age so beautifully and women just look used up. I am guilty of perpetuating this idea of beauty.
Let’s change our ideals. Let’s modify our vision. Let’s open our eyes and see those marks on a woman’s body for what they are. They are her story. Her glorious life affirming, life giving, grief filled, joy filled story. They are the marks of children born and nurtured. They are the marks of children lost. They are the marks of husbands fought for, of love given, of days gone by in worry and stress. Who the hell are we to judge those marks as ugly? Who are we to tell women they would be beautiful if they only tucked their tummies, plucked their eyebrows, lost 50 lbs, dyed their hair and applied their makeup properly? I love the map of a man’s story on his face. I love his laugh lines, his frown lines, his grey hair, his calloused hands and his scars. I love what they tell me about him. Why can’t I love the roads, valleys, and rivers mapped on my own body? Why can’t I look at my laugh lines, my frown lines, my grey hair, my worn skin and my scars and tell myself “well done, Woman.” I have loved well, I have fought hard for my children, my husband, and even my friends. I have wept with joy, and wept with sorrow. My eyes are filled with life lived and the expectation of life to come. My body is marred with child birth, grief, joy, and a life lived to its fullest. And? I am so very beautiful. I will not erase my story. I will not go under a knife to cut out the rivers life has mapped on my body. I will not cover my life lines with makeup, I will not dye my grey hair. Please don’t hear me wrong and think that I regret becoming an athlete and losing the excess weight I carried. I love the strength, health, and capabilities I have discovered in my body. I will stop trying to achieve a goal of perfection that is unobtainable and I urge you, men & women alike to challenge your perception of beauty. Well done, Woman, you are living a full and beautiful life.
