Lived in.
You know what I like?
This feeling I’m having this week of leaving myself alone, of not being under construction. I’m happy in my body right now. I’m not interested in the size of my thighs, my hair is freshly-cut and therefore fuss-free (yay for short hair!), I’m wearing clothes that don’t squeeze me, make-up has been minimal, and exercise has been consistent but not cruel.
I like not being a project. I like not feeling as though I should be working on New! Improved! Me! all the time. I’m not trying to get skinnier or grow my hair out or make my skin less glaringly white or my cellulite less bumpy or my skin smoother and my lips plumper. I’m not looking through magazines and cataloguing the ways I don’t measure up. I’m not wandering through the drug store looking for the next magic product that will make my teeth brighter and my pores smaller and my hooves softer.
I’m just living my life in an imperfect body, and you know? People aren’t running away screaming, children aren’t bursting into tears at the sight of my dry cuticles and uneven complexion, and my husband hasn’t divorced me for a wife with less-pronounced smile lines and a flat stomach.
All that stuff that the world tells us matter oh so very much? It just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you have gray hairs or pale skin or stretch marks or back fat. Those things don’t affect the quality of your life until you let them.
My favorite pair of sneakers looks pretty rough around the edges. The rubber is worn and the laces are dingy, but they have taken me places. They have earned that wear; it’s proof of a life lived.
I’m going to look at my body the same way. It’s imperfect because I’m using it.
And that’s worth celebrating.
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“My favorite pair of sneakers looks pretty rough around the edges. The rubber is worn and the laces are dingy, but they have taken me places. They have earned that wear; it’s proof of a life lived.
I’m going to look at my body the same way. It’s imperfect because I’m using it.
And that’s worth celebrating.”
Such an excellent analogy! I had a long discussion the other day about sneakers with a friend of mine. She was talking about how she didn’t want to wear her favorite sneakers all the time because they would get dirty and wear out. I asked her how many favorite pairs of sneakers she had ever had, and if she really thought that this was the end-all be-all pair… that there would never be another pair of sneakers she couldn’t live without. Which is how I feel about my own shoes… why NOT wear em? Which is also why I love your comment. If we are too afraid to “get dirty” and “wear out” we’ll never have any fun!
I like Garfield’s comment on being fat…..
“We all get heavier as we get older because there’s a lot more information in our heads. So I’m not fat, I’m just really intelligent and my head couldn’t hold anymore so it started filling up the rest of me.”
So we’re living our lives and learning things every day and filling up our heads and bodies with knowledge (and using that knowledge to the best of our abilities).
“All that stuff that the world tells us matter oh so very much? It just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you have gray hairs or pale skin or stretch marks or back fat. Those things don’t affect the quality of your life until you let them.”
wow – that is so true. This really hit home with me. Is it just me or in the last four months have you become wise beyond your years???? I;m printing this one out and putting above my desk! Again, you rock.
“I like not being a project.”
That is exactly the point. So lovely.
AWESOME. This is, like, a manifesto!!
what a wise post. “not a project” I like that a lot.
h.x
[...] Good with Cheese: Lived In. I give you no exposition or explanation. Just go read. [...]
Well said. Isn’t this the sort of thing we should be preaching to our youth? Get it in their mind now that Madison Avenue does not own you.
Well said, girl.
You rock. Seriously. I need to print “Good with Cheese” quotes too.
Glaring white skin makes one easy to find in the summer. It’s not a problem. If you’re a glaring white person naturally, who stays glaring white naturally, it means you haven’t injured your skin. There’s nothing inherently more attractive about orange skin via Tan-In-A-Can. When did we go from it’s not OK to be dark-skinned to it’s not OK to be glaringly pale? Or is it just a way to maximize everyone being unhappy with themselves and spending money to be Other?