Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome
Accidentally eavesdropping from a bathroom stall in the kind of fancy-schmancey restaurant that I only eat at when my boss is paying, I overheard this:
Woman #1 [Groaning]: Oh. My. God. Would you look at my thighs? Why did I even buy this dress? I look like a sausage! And my back…I have more cleavage there than my front!
Woman #2: At least you have a tiny waist! My stomach looks like I’m pregnant. And that Hollywood diet clearly didn’t do anything for the cellulite on my arms. Maybe I should put on a coat.
They went back and forth about leg fat and chin rolls, a conversational Ping-Pong tournament of fat-fat-fat-fat. The way they were talking made them sound more hippopotamus than human.
Then their respective tirades turned global: from frizzy hair to chipped toenail polish, leathery skin to misshapen lips, no body part was safe. Surely, I thought, I will exit this stall and find two fairytale witches.
(Actually? I was a little afraid to exit because I didn’t want to get caught in the Crossfire of Shame. But since I’d already been hiding out for an embarrassing length of time, I decided to risk it.)
Turning the corner, I caught the girls’ reflections in the mirror, and my jaw actually dropped–like, literally. In front of me were two honest-to-God Barbie look-a-likes: slender and svelte, decked out in formalwear and full hair and make-up for a sorority event. They couldn’t have been a day over twenty-two.
I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to shake them hard… or hug them harder.
Nope. I definitely wanted to hug them.
I wanted to throw my arms around their bare shoulders and tell them how beautiful they actually were, how precious, how deserving of all the self-love they were denying themselves. I wanted to smooth their hair tell them what I didn’t know at twenty-two either: beauty has nothing to do with your hair or your weight or your nose:
Beauty exists in your mind and heart.
I came by this truth the hard way: chronic illness, gaining damn near 85 pounds, losing it, gaining it again, losing half of it, gaining it back. I’d gained and lost more pounds than both girls weighed together.
I’d lived in a body I didn’t recognize; I’d been these girls and worse. I’d hated myself to the moon.
But the journey taught me to love myself to the sun and back.
At 32, I finally love my body. I ADORE it. But not because of how it looks or doesn’t look in the mirror.
I love it for walking, for dancing, for bending into yoga poses, for kissing my husband and rubbing my dog’s belly.I finally see that this beautiful, beautiful body is my chance to interact in this amazing world of ours: to climb mountains (real or figurative), backflip off the high-dive, squeeze my grandmother’s hand at my cousin’s wedding.
This body is the only one I get. Why would I spend even five minutes hating it?
As I bent to wash my hands, I thought of how every once in a while, if I get out of the shower and catch a glimpse of the things I might change about my body if given a magic wand–I actually laugh out loud at the confused little ego who still thinks I should look like a Victoria’s Secret Angel.
And I wished very hard that I could give these girls that gift—the ability to love yourself enough to laugh.
I wished I could tell them that when I catch myself obsessing, I face the mirror and tell the naked Truth:
My body will never be as young and beautiful and capable as it is right now. One day when I am very old, this body will only be a memory—and all the things it could do a far-off dream. I will appreciate it in ways I can’t grasp right now. So I refuse to squander this day. Today, I will love and enjoy this body.
My presence didn’t make any difference to the girls, of course; they were too busy hating themselves to notice a brunette quietly listening, desperately sending them the love they refused to give themselves.
But I can only hope that one day they too will learn to tell this Truth:
I love my body because it’s mine.
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