Power Portraits and Pudge.
On the scale this morning, my image of my body went from being squishy-but-pleasant, to being a whole damned couch.
Let me start by saying, this is embarrassing to talk about, to admit that I’ve been obsessing about it. I don’t WANT to care about my weight, or my extra smoosh, I WANT to be evolved and only focus on those things my daughter correctly states should be our assessment of our bodies, “Am I strong? Am I flexible? Am I healthy?” My body should be the LEAST interesting thing about me and take the least of my attention. Buuuuutttttt I’m not living in a vacuum, and there’s this whole universe of judgement inside and outside my skull, telling me what needs to be trimmed for me to be worthy.
I currently weigh just under what I weighed when I was pregnant with my first human child, in 2011. I gained something like 60 pounds of fuck-it weight during that pregnancy, coming off of multiple miscarriages and infertility. I was in full celebration/protection mode for those precarious months. When I hit 200 lbs, my coworkers bought be a Costco cake. I Very-Hungry-Caterpillar’d my way through it and kept right on going.
I was in my early 30’s, and after both that pregnancy, and the one that followed, I was chasing toddlers and exercising regularly, and I probably ate some carrots or something (I don’t really remember, the whole time was a blur), and I lost most of the weight. I more or less maintained what I considered to be a satisfying level of chub until the depression and hopelessness and stuck-ness of the pandemic found me eating midnight chips on the same couch I hadn’t left all day. Also, I turned forty this year and some combination of those things mean nothing bounces back, things just bounce.
Two months ago, I signed up for these “40 Over 40” boudoir photos, wanting to feel empowered and sexy and do something special just for me, after a long year(s) of being a service animal for other people. I decided, instead of the lacy thong on the bed routine, I would do something confident and cool, useful not just for spank bank material for my husband, but for my professional writing website. SO, I’m calling them “Power Portraits,” and I planned to look fierce and fabulous.
The thing is, I secretly have a vision of what fabulous looks like, and me in my current fat suit ain’t it. In the back of my mind, I figured two months was surely plenty of time to go from being the dungeon-dwelling swamp creature to a fancy princess with clean clothes, a good attitude, a waist, and no armpit mashed potatoes, right?! I figured by then, way in the future, I’d have cleaned up my act and my hair and skin would be just the right amount of smooth and shiny; my stained, cracked foot bottoms from being perpetually barefoot would be callous and filth-free, my face would choose EITHER acne OR wrinkles, and I’d have a whole wardrobe of unstained, stylish clothes. Plus, for good measure, I would have learned French and manners and whatever else proper people know. Tennis? It’s vague. Anyway, I had a sense that I’d buckle down and collect myself by then.
And guess what.
Then is now. The photos are in two days. I am no more cheerful, hairless, or svelte than I was then. It’s just going to have to be good enough. I’m just going to have to be good enough. It’s taking all of my enlightenment and what I’ve learned about loving myself, showing myself grace, and determination to define my own worth in my own terms, to be OK with how I look, how I will look in the pictures. I will look smart, cool, poised, intentional, and that is all more important than whatever side boob pokes out….RIGHT!?!?
Oh, and instead of just finding a hairdresser to fix my brown roots-bleached middle part-blue tipped hair, I decided to do it my own-self! After applying the $11 box dye, I noticed my mullet was getting kind of shaggy, so I trimmed it myself! Funny how it never really looks even so you just have to keep going and going, backwards, in the mirror, and how you can’t really do the back, so you have to hand the dull scissors to your elementary-aged child to hack through it for you because you don’t want to admit to your husband what dumb shit you’re doing….so, anyway.
Please let the record-and pictures- show that I am funny.
