Belly.

I’ve become hyper-aware of my stomach this week. 

When I was at my thinnest, my stomach was flat; I even had a so-called ’six pack.’  I’ve never carried a lot of weight in my stomach.  I’m more of a hip-and-thigh girl. 

But as I’ve put on a few pounds, I’m having to get reacquainted with a normal belly.  Even the word ‘belly’ is tricky for me.  That implies a curviness, a lushness, that wouldn’t have been applicable to my flat, washboard stomach.  But my new stomach?  Totally a belly.

It curves outward.  It presses against the waistband of my pants when I sit, sometimes startling me; I think, “Are my pants too tight??”  But no.  It’s just my belly, quietly asserting itself. 

I didn’t realize how much of my life I went around with my stomach muscles pulled in.  Clenched, really.  It was rigid and tight, just like my behaviors.  Discipline and control, always the watch words.

Now I’m working on consciously relaxing my belly, letting it curve forward.  I like the shape of it, though I feel confused by that; I’ve worked incredibly hard to see every muscle in my stomach, and to let those muscles sort of blur, to lose that definition, is scary.  But there’s something so feminine about the new, soft, curvy belly–I find it irresistible. 

Now I’m just working my way towards finding my thighs equally lovely.