Journaling Body Love

"One day I had to sit down with myself and decide that I loved myself no matter what my body looked like and what other people thought about my body."- Gabourey Sidibe

I grew up with a mother who was always on a diet and who hated her own body because her younger sister took after my tiny grandmother and she took after her Reubenesque grandmother.  I was thin until I had a brain bleed and on prednisone etal.  Then I got too skinny.  Then they even put me on a superphantoplex medication to help me put on weight.  Then I worked myself thin again and again.  Then I retired, went through menopause late, and gained all the offending middle-aged spread.  It wasn't that I was inactive.  Up until the summer of 2015, I climbed mountains seeking gems for six months a year.  And then, slowly, I continued to gain and did not have the energy to climb stairs, nevermind mountains.  Then I started dieting and walking and hopelessly lost and gained again and again.  Then the neuropathy it and I took medication for small fibre neuropathy.  Then my knees went.  That ended my sporadic bike-riding and walking the tracks and paths.  The heavier I got, the more I hated my body.  I had once been so vain.  This felt like karma.  

My New Year's Resolution ( and I hate resolutions, too) was to never let one word, one post, feed my poor body image.  Afterall, I survived double mastectomies like a breeze, in 1973 and not had it bother me psychologically.  Why, now, did/do I let this curtail my loving myself?  Oh, I know.  Society pities a breastless woman, but not a fat woman.  Nine out of ten posts are about something you should or should not eat, some new diet ( pay $$$ for info, and someone has something to say about how dangerous food that tstes good is not good for you.  Some people will not be haopoy until they have us eating cardboard, wood chips, or fake meat.    Right now, I am merely trying to figure out how to keep my sugars lower than 9.9.  

It has been proven that social media is bad for your heath;  body, mind, heart and soul.  We are having low self-esteem on a platter served to us every moment on social media.  Everyone has some kind of self-diagnosed disorder and all our medical issues are food driven.  Someone is cleansing every orifice and twisting gut in our body.  Most often, you scan the scroll of FB and leave feeling disparaged and discouraged. 
There are so many things we should be body grateful for.  I do spend a lot of time in a scenario much like hammer the gopher in the hole gaming.  If it is not one thing, it is another and just when you think you have won something, something new rears its ugly head.  Media works on our insecurities and they did not have to, we are disparaging enough on ourselves.  If you have noticed, they self-portrait type pages I am doing now show a more Ruebenesque figure.  Slowly I am accepting that I cannot do everything, but I can do something.   

Look, my hands still work, my wrists only hurt when I am trying to twist twine ( as if).  My feet are numb unless I step on a grain of salt and then it feels like I have stepped on a shard of glass.  My ankles are skinny, thank god there is something but don't step on a stone or an unever crack in a sidewalk because then I will limp all day.  My knees are buggared but they still bend.  My hips have a new sway to them, not naturally, but because it hurts to really step out and move.  I do not have a bad back, but I cannot reach into the backseat to get my purse and not have a side cramp that would bend me to my knees if I weren't already sitting.  My belly is good, no upsets, no ulcers, but the dang thing has begun to take up more space than I know what to do with.  My neck is not AL crêpe, just somewhat crêpe, and I can still turn my head to see if a car is coming either direction on a Tee.  I do not have headaches, but I certainly have scalp-aches... yes, scalp-aches.. I have sore spots on my scalp that feel like a woodpecker severely wounded me on my wooden head.  My hair is not too thin.  I can't put on eye makeup because I cannot see to draw a line, and I tried putting on fake eyelashes but they end up sideways or upside down.  Oh but I love my body.  Good danged thing I have a sense of humor, God, thanks a bunch.

What I am doing right is learning to give my body some self-care.  I am no longer living with dread nor higher expectations than I could ever meet.  I eat healthy foods and go out very seldom to eat.  We make our own bread, but I make my own artisan sourdough bread and eat it sparingly.  Instead of dieting, I am making sure I eat some of the foodgroups every day.  I am eating lovcally or home grown veggies and fruit.  We buy only Grade AAA lean beef from people we know who raise (and how they are raised) cattle.  I do not use regular sugar for anything.  I try to drink some water every day.  Ok, I guess that covers expectations.  I still eat popcorn but I stay mildly focused on calories and not eating mindless carb foods. But, I am still fat.

I try to comb my hair every day.  I shower every other day to self-love my poor dry skin.  I try to slap on some make up in the eye area at least once a week.  I am more relaxed, but not slovenly, about how I dress.  I still love my bluejeans that are paint-splotched and ready to bare some thread, the most and wear them because, I do art every day, and that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.  I only try to step on the scales after I have eaten OMG Cake or a handful of potato chips twice in a day. I can still breath, although I have noticed a bit of congestion, probably from smoking ...and do not say it.. .my drying breath will be a puff on a smoke, pretty sure.    There are many things I love myself for:  I have my sense of humor back, I am artistic, I am poetic, and I have a huge heart.  I love that I know I have been brave, have been kind and loving and serving.  I have done some good things for good people and some not-so-good people.  I have loved and been greatly loved in return.  That should be enough.  I am enough.  I love that about myself.

Can you journal such about yourself.  Can you find the humor?  Can you find a way to express your body love?  Yes, you can.  I believe in you.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.18.19