Changing the Story

     This is not about moving or retiring, or anything like that.  It is about changing the way we think about a single thing can change a lot of things.

     My mom is...well, I won't tell you how old she is, because she would kill me.  But I'm getting ready to retire, and she was not an under-aged minor when I was born...well, actually she was, but the age of majority was higher in those days, and she WAS married.  Anyway, she has lived a good life, surpassing her biblical three score and ten.

     She was lamenting the fact that her legs have gotten old.  I don't think they're any older than the rest of her, but she told me she wears pants most days because "I have Old Lady Legs."  And I thought, "You SHOULD have Old Lady Legs.  What's wrong with that?"  Like my Mom, I look in the mirror and see everything that I don't like about my body.  Some of the things I hate are probably attractive, but they are not what I wish they were.  I've hated my body in general since I was 8 years old.  I tried to ignore it, and pretend that it didn't matter.  I dreamed of having a body that I would NEVER have because, quite honestly, those genes don't exist in my family's gene pool, and hated myself because I couldn't achieve it.  I dieted.  The grapefruit diet.  The nothing but protein and water diet.  The nasty shake diet.  I over-ate.  I obsessed about it.  I tried to ignore it.

     Today I heard her and without thinking I said, "You know, your body has served you well for XX years.  You ought to thank God for it every day.  Your body has served you beautifully.  It's a gift you should be grateful for."

     She said, "I do give thanks for my good health."

    But I think for most of us "good health" is an abstract idea and I think that a lot of women don't connect it to the body that we inhabit, the body we see in the mirror.  We look at that image and we see things that don't fit the popular definition/image of beauty.  We don't think about the wonderful things our bodies do -- until they can't do them any more.

     I remember when I was a child there was this sentiment that after 40 a woman could "let herself go" -- that she didn't have to spend a lot of time worrying about her hair, make-up, figure.  Then Gloria Steinham (who has absurdly fabulous genes!) declared "This is what 40 looks like" (a Playboy Bunny).  Today for some reason, women who are great-grandmothers are hating themselves because their bodies have done what they were programmed to do and instead of being freed to focus on being creative or intellectually curious or socially involved, we still have to think about looking like a 30 year old model.  We know we can't do it, we know the actual 30 year-olds always "win", but we hate ourselves because we don't look like TV stars, even when we know that without a wardrobe department and makeup artists, neither do they.

       My body carries me through each day and provides me with a presence and potential in the world.  It climbs stairs and dances.  It takes in the world through five miraculous senses.  It is not the extent of what I am, but allows me to be part of the cosmos in a way that my mind and even my spirit alone cannot.  So today I thank God for my body, exactly as it is.