Love Yourself As You Are

Lately I feel like I am the mother of an adolescent.
I really had no idea how much five and a half resembles twelve and a half,
Especially in a daughter.
I'm not exactly prepared for this quite yet.
I was busy working on preparing for the idea that when Dahlia actually does hit puberty,
I will be close to hitting menopause.

Perfect timing.
It should be lovely at our house right about then.
Dave is already planning the separate edifice he'll be building in the backyard - his manspace.
I think right about then I'll be moving - solo - to the south of France.
Either that or it might have to be boarding school for my adolescent.

Earlier today as I was deep cleaning years of grime in the corners of our new bathroom,
Dahlia came to the door and announced,
I'm fat.
Then she pointed to her belly, and asked to see mine.
After telling her she's not fat, I showed her my belly,
Bulge and all.
My belly's fatter than yours, she continued.
Bellies are supposed to be round,
That's what bellies do, Dahlia.

How do you tell your daughter she's not fat without making fat a bad thing?

The whole time a little voice inside my head is saying,
Really? Already? You're only five? Where do you get this?

Then she changed her outfit a third time,
Unsatisfied with how her second skirt fit on her body.
And that same voice in my head is saying,
Aren't you too young for this?

Then I say, to clarify, to make sure she knows, to try and get some sense of where it comes from,
You know that the Disney princesses aren't real, right?
You know that their bodies aren't what women really look like, right?

Yes, Mom, you've already told me that. I know.
(Exasperated voice, rolling eyes, reminiscent of an adolescent.)

Sigh... I am so not ready for this.

*****

I have spent a LOT of my life disliking my physical self,
Incredibly insecure, wanting to be anything but what I was.
I don't think it started quite at age five,
But it was definitely well ingrained in me by the time I was nine or ten.
I wished my hair was straighter, less frizzy, more blond than brown.
I wished my legs were more wiry, thighs less thick.
I wished my nose was more pointed, less bumpy, less Jewish.
I wished my skin was clearer, smoother.
I wished my clothes were more name-brand, more hip.
I wished I was more popular, that boys would like me as more than a friend.
I even wished my family was more American, more normal.

You could not pay me enough money to go back to junior high school.
It was over 25 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

*****

LOVE YOURSELF
AS YOU ARE.

THERE IS NO ONE
QUITE LIKE YOU.

*****

That is all I want her to know.
There is no way to teach this to her except by living it.
It's a hard one to live sometimes.
I get it, I really do.
In my head, I believe it...
On a concept level, I really do love myself.
But on a deep feeling level, I wonder...

Do I really love myself AS I AM?
Will I ever really love my flabby stretched out thighs?
The same thighs I began hating at least 28 years ago?
How do you unlearn that?

How can I not love my thighs if they are a part of me?
How can I not appreciate the legs that allow me to walk,
That carry me?
Do I still love them even if I don't use them as completely as I could?
Why is it that exercise comes so reluctantly to me?
Why am I so inherently lazy when it comes to using my body to its fullest capacity?

No wonder I am so triggered when my daughter tells me she thinks she's fat.

*****

I was fat for part of high school and part of college.
Then I had serious acne for three years.
Lots to hate about myself then.
Lots of time spent incredibly uncomfortable in my skin,
Wishing I could wake up one day in another body,
A thinner body,
With clear skin.

For many years after that, my greatest victory was having lost the weight and kept it off.
Then I got sick with colitis for the first time,
And I got really skinny,
Size 0 skinny.
And I felt awful, even if a part of me secretly enjoyed being so thin.
And I stayed thin for many years after that, no more than a size 4.
Even after having Dahlia, I went right back down in weight.
But I wasn't healthy, felt really depleted, had a hard time keeping weight on, and I'd get sick a lot.

During my pregnancy with Tikva, I asked my body to keep on some of my pregnancy weight after I had her.
And I did, and still have - an extra 10 pounds from before carrying her.
And I stayed healthy all winter, for the first time since I can remember.
I feel better at this weight, less cold all the time, more solid, more resilient.
Even with the flabby thighs...
Even with the belly...
Even with the colitis...
Even with the acne.

*****

I'd like to spend a lifetime after this one as just pure spirit.
Take a vacation from having a body,
Because inhabiting a body is a lot of work.
I am grateful to my body for its resilience,
Its ability to heal,
Its ability to hold me, to carry me, to recover when I haven't always treated it as well as I could.

Thinking about Tikva,
how hard she worked in her body,
I am even more grateful for those precious gifts:
Breath. Sight. Digestion. Touch. Life.

I of all people should be able to remember that.
So why is it so hard to feel peaceful in my body?
Why is it so hard to believe that I will heal - as I have before - from the colitis?
That I won't have colitis on and off forever.
That my skin will clear.
That I won't always have a headache for four days during and after my period.
That it really doesn't matter how many stretch marks I carry on my thighs.
That going grey means it's time to have fun with hair color, even go blonder if I want to.

(I don't sound convincing, do I?
That's because I'm not yet convinced.)

*****

If I'd been born in Samoa 150 years ago,
I would be trying to fatten up in order to feel beautiful.
It's all relative...

*****

In the end, the vessel that carries my soul won't matter.
In the end, it will end up in the ground,
Merging with the molecules of the earth around it.
In the end, my soul will merge once again with all that is and all that ever has been and all that ever will be
And my body will be just an empty vessel,
Like Tikva's.

Strange how something like a body can be so important,
And then so unimportant.
Her body is the reason she is not alive anymore,
And yet now it doesn't matter anymore.
It's no longer where she is.
My body has been such a point of struggle for me for so many years,
For so many reasons...
And yet eventually I will leave it behind,
Hopefully thankful for all it has given me.
For its gifts.
I hope when it's my time, I can feel that gratitude.

Perhaps the point is to feel that gratitude already.

*****

There must still be a small part of me that believes I had something to do with why Tikva was born so sick.
It's that same part of me that blames myself for getting colitis in the first place so many years ago.
The same part of me that blames myself, even before that, for getting fat in the first place.
It's the part of me that blames myself for all the pain and sorrow I have put myself through,
All the struggle that could have been avoided
If I'd only known better then...

Hindsight is 20-20.
I know... it's not fair to blame.
I made the best possible choices then with what I knew at the time.
I could be gentler with myself,
More forgiving.

I once looked in the mirror and said out loud to myself,

I am so sorry.

I forgive you...

*****

God, I thought I was past this - years past this.
I have a strong sense of myself,
Incredible confidence,
High self-esteem.

And yet... this.
It's still here, and it is so triggered now that I see it in my daughter.
I am terrified for her, for all that is ahead for her.
I want to shelter her from the hateful looks she is capable of giving herself when she looks in the mirror.
I want to take her away to a small hut on a mountain, far away from everything and everyone that could influence her negatively.
I want to take us both away from mirrors, and media, and a wardrobe full of clothes we search through to make us feel beautiful on days when we don't.

My frustration that she finds herself here makes me impatient.
I want it all to go away, for her to skip over it all and get to a place where she realizes, on a cellular level, that her beauty really does come from deep within.

It's taken me 38 years to just barely start to get that, to believe it.
I need to be patient with her, understand that she has her own process to go through,
In her own way, in her own time.

Still, I just want to shelter her from it all,
Have her see herself through my eyes,
Where all I see is the sparkle of her blue eyes encircled by her long dark lashes
And the humor in her facetious smile as she teases me.
Where I look at her - from the inside out - and think,

Some day, someone is going to fall so madly deeply in love with you,
And I am going to be so jealous of them...