Body Image Clarity

Body Image Confusion

So I've come across an interesting phenomenon. When I go take my dance class at the Treehouse on Monday mornings, although my flexibility doesn't quite measure up, I look in the mirror and feel quite good about my appearance and abilities. But when I attend my "Ultimate" rehearsal on Wednesday nights, I come away discouraged and feeling quite like an overweight thirtysomething wannabe who has no business putting on dance pants.

Hmmmm....

At the Treehouse there are a few mini-moms who have tight abs and teeny rear-ends, but for the most part, at that class at least, it is a group of real women in all shapes and sizes who have carried babies inside the womb and out, put careers on the back-burner, eaten chocolate to get through the day (more than once and the effects are starting to show), shared one too many chicken nuggets with their children, and experienced the effects of slowing metabolisms, pregnancy weight gain, and age. In there, I look pretty darn good.

At my dance class I'm surrounded by beautiful, fun, energetic young women whose lives are just beginning. Some of them have babies or little ones, but I'm the only one who has completed FOUR pregnancies (the biggest birth weight coming in just under 10 pounds). These young women still get to focus on being 20 years old and all that means. Their skinny thighs show it. Their skin is youthful and their bodies are lean, and once upon a time, I would have matched.

But I don't match. My body is scarred with flaws of age, pregnancy, slowing metabolism, and experience. My thighs don't really want to shrink like they used to. My waist is gone, replaced by a layer of "baby fat" as a souvenir of carrying Ben. My face requires a little bit more foundation than it once did, and while my arms are still tone (swimming continues to do wonders in that department), there are plenty of other body areas that are not to counteract!

Next time I get discouraged, though, I think I'll remind myself that my dancing is more authentic than it was when I was 20-something because it comes from within. Not at all do I imply that the young beauties in my group's dance doesn't come from within. It probably does. They are all beautiful dancers. But MINE has changed. My dance comes from a place of peace, inner calm, and energy that extends far beyond my limited leg extension! I am a woman, and I embrace all that being a woman means.

Being a woman means serving, child-bearing, mothering, caring, striving, gaining and losing weight, sitting in the mire with another, and allowing dreams to shift to other realities than planned. It means rocking the baby in the middle of the night, and holding the frightened child, cooking spaghetti, eating chicken nuggets or mac-n-cheese when I'm too tired to cook something else. It means listening to a child who has been wounded, and getting through the tough moments. It means loving a spouse who is being unlovable, and waiting for that love to penetrate. It means waking up in the morning and sharing love with all those around her to try to create warmth in what can be a cold, cruel world. It means exercising but growing more weary from it that when I was younger. It means walking into the fiery furnace to gather up my child, even when that child doesn't think he wants me to. It means waiting patiently for others to feel my love, with no guarantee of its return.

There are many beautiful bodies, but the woman who truly lives her womanhood is rare. Can I love my scarred and weathered body? I'm a work in progress. It takes time when I stand next to young women who are embarking on womanhood. Strangely, when I stand next to women who are living and breathing the experience of full womanhood? THEN, I feel beautiful. Perhaps I am.