Reflections on My Reflection

This may be one of the most honest pieces I’ve ever written about my weight/body size. Here goes.

I was always big. Never so big that I suffered any real social outcasting in middle and high school, but noticeably larger than my mostly thin and short friends. Because of my history of sexual abuse and violence, I was mostly disconnected from my body and while I can recollect a few times wishing to be thinner or shorter or prettier or whatever, I can’t recall ever really daring to think about it too much.

In a way, I think I convinced myself that if I didn’t think about my body, it wasn’t really real and the things that happened to it weren’t really real and its size wasn’t real and you can see where I’m going.

But then I found feminism. And college. And messages of body positivity that required me to think about, to thank, and to love my body. I tried for awhile to get on board with the fat-positive and body-positive movement, and though it’s one I fully support and admire, it never felt like a movement that was home for me. Though my body had been policed by a few family members and relatives over the year, I hadn’t really had the scarring moments of those I love telling me my body needed to be thinner. I remember trying to “diet” a few times in high school, but I usually gave up after a few days-noting that I didn’t want to think that much about my body and I wanted a piece of cake. So I had to try to figure out how to love this body of mine that I have that doesn’t seem to fit any of the paths I’m supposed to use to learn to love it.

I found my answer by focusing on the things my body does for me. It hugs people, it makes love, it takes me from one place to another, etc. I also would stand in front of the mirror and admire my body and say “Damn girl!” until I truly felt good about the reflection. I did this to overcome my natural negative response to my body. I tell this story often, but I leave out probably the most important truth. I didn’t’ do those damn girl exercises to overcome my negative body image in the sense that I thought I was fat or ugly, I did it force myself to own the physical space I occupied as a beautiful part of who I am. I’d never really accepted my body in that way-never wanted to let it become too much a part of who I was, lest the bad things that had happened to it would have too much power.

My mistake in this, however, was that I didn’t realize that I needed to address the issues of my abuse and assault and to learn to see them as something that happened to my body, not something that defined it. This is something I work through every day, and I wouldn’t pretend to have any advice on making this easier.

And now to the present, where I’ve recently decided that this semester, I really want to commit to getting cardio exercise 2-3 times a week and doing yoga 2-3 times a week. I want to do it because I feel like my body wants me to. It wants to move. Both it and I (or I guess just I? congruency is difficult) don’t like that it’s stiff in the morning and that I can’t run or go up the 4 flights of stairs to my classroom without losing my breath. I’m 20 years old, and I don’t want to spend my 20s feeling like my body isn’t capable of doing all that it could. And I know it well enough that dieting is not the way to achieve that, as my body is incredibly good at telling me what it needs to eat and how much of it it needs to eat-especially if I just listen closely enough.

So now I’m here-resolving to exercise more and even tempted to buy a scale because I know that seeing tangible results will help motivate me. (I also think I’m at a point where seeing numbers not going down on the scale will not destroy me and that I don’t feel the need to set a goal weight, which I think is good.) And I feel like I’m somehow betraying my feminism by doing so.

I suppose it’s less that I feel I’m betraying my values with this new dedication to exercising my body, but that I fear my actions will be misinterpreted as some kind of body-hate, when really, they feel like body love to me. As twisted as this sounds, if I gained 100 pounds, no one in my inner circle would ever raise the issue or bring it up. They would truly continue to love me and not judge me and trust me to love my body. But, I fear that if they catch wind of me owning a scale, they will feel room to criticize me. I wonder if these fears are imagined or real? And I wonder if other feminists ever struggle with these issues.

I’m not really sure where this whole journey will take me, but I think I’d like to write about it more on this blog. If you have any advice about reconciling all these conflicting things I’m feeling, please feel free to share.

Xoxo

P.S. Blog about my Christmas haul coming soon!

New Year!

2010 has been one of the most incomprehensible years of my life. I've loved more intensely than I ever thought possible and lost in a way I never believed could happen.

I met new friends and built and left an entire life in England.

I'm ending it less sure of anything than I was last year at this time and I'm trying to see that as a good thing.

I like resolutions, though I rarely end up really sticking to them. Let's see how this goes.

1) Write in this blog once a week.

2) Write in my journal each night before bed.

3) Learn to enjoy talking on the phone again so that I can reconnect with friends with whom I've lost touch.

4) Hold my nephew as much as I can while he's still a tiny baby.

5) Be more honest with the people around me.

6) Do aerobic exercise 2-3 times a week. I don't feel like I take care of my body well enough in terms of getting my heart pumping and I want to give it the attention it deserves.

7) Do yoga 2-3 times a week. I need to work on getting back in touch with the way my body feels and moves.

8) Start my grad school applications early so that I feel confident about each one.

9) Focus on treating my depression and anxiety and getting my brain chemistry back to a place that feels constructive.

10) Be more responsible with money and resist using shopping as a coping mechanism.

11) Find more reasons to believe the world is a good place.

I'm not sure what 2011 will hold. I thought I knew what this year would be about, but it really just served to remind me that I don't know much about anything.

I hope your New Year's Day finds you healthy and happy.

xoxo

ShoeDazzle. Love of my life.

Hey all. Finally back, and with a post about shoes to boot! (pun totally intended.)

I signed up for ShoeDazzle a few months ago and have pretty much fallen in love with it. I was a little hesitant at first because I have big feet, and feet that seem to run a different size in most shoes. But, I've received two pairs so far and both fit perfectly!

In case you want to know, ShoeDazzle is a styling service that provides you with a selection of new shoes to pick from each month-each only priced $39.95. Seriously. I'm in love.

Here's the first pair I got:

I wore them for a night out to a club, and they held up really well for the first 2-3 hours. After that, understandably, the dogs started barking. But I still think that's an impressive result for having a whole lot of woman balanced on tiny little shoe.

Today, my next pair arrived in the mail. I. Love. Them.

I'm pretty good at walking in heels, but honestly, I'm struggling with these. I think it might be the platform/5 inch heel combo. I'm never had a platform and a high, skinny heel. But, even if they only make good 30 minute shoes, I still feel like they are worth it.

Yes, I know I'm going to end like the older sister from "In Her Shoes" with a closet full of expensive shoes I never wear, but I don't care. They are so pretty!

Being Thankful

Disgusting celebration of colonialism aside, Thanksgiving has never really been one of my favorite holidays. I don’t eat meat, and don’t particularly enjoy lots of Thanksgiving side dishes, so it’s never actually been much of an eating holiday. Plus, the whole family togetherness thing….I mean, need I say more?

That said, I do enjoy the idea of stopping and thinking about the things for which I’m thankful. (I absolutely refuse to use the phrase “what I’m thankful for” because ahah! Ending sentences in prepositions!)

Without Further Delay:

1) My chosen family. These people have helped me through a tumultuous year. I am so lucky to have so many people in my life who are so wonderful, giving, and generous.

2) My college education and chance to study abroad. Thanks, MU Chancellor-I really appreciate your money.

3) Cheap red wine and the Saturday nights during which it is consumed at my apartment. These wine nights are wonderful outpourings of my love of my feminist family.

4) The fact that I have a roof over my head, fierce shoes on my feet, and need not worry about from where my next meal will come. I understand what a privilege this is.

5) Blogs.

6) The MU Women’s Center and everything it has taught me.

7) Free counseling.

8) The fact that I am more comfortable in my own skin right now than I ever thought possible.

Hope you all have a lovely day filled with Arlo Guthrie, football, and lots and lots of food.

Note: I really hope to return to some more fashiony posts soon. I've just been thinking a lot more about life than shoes lately.

Things I've Come to Know About Myself (Part 1)

I’ve been thinking a lot about a post I read on Suguarbutch last year. It was back when Sinclair was writing about Kristin’s homework assignments. One post, the holiday version, has stuck with me. Sugarbutch wrote about how Kristin was going home to deal with family things and her biggest homework assignment was to take care of herself and check in when she needed. (I would post a link, but it’s password protected so it wouldn’t do much good.)

I remember this so clearly because when I read it last year, I thought about how, like Kristin, this year I had someone to help me through the emotionally draining holidays spent with my family. I knew there was someone who was worried about my well-being and who would support me. I felt like I had someone on my side.

This year, things are a little different. I don’t have that person. I want to point out that I do have an absolutely amazing network of friends, many of whom would not hesitate to support me in whatever way I needed if I asked and I am so lucky and thankful for that. BUT, friends are not the same as having a partner. At least for me, having a partner implies a level of trust that I struggle to have even with my closest friends. It means feeling I can rely on that person for anything and moreover, that the person will probably be with me through most of the difficult things I face. Last year, the ex (I still don’t know what to call her here, so I’ll settle with the ex) helped me tremendously through my holiday season out to my parents. It was also the last few weeks I would be in the US and thus everything had an extra feeling of urgency.

But this year, I’m alone.

And because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the ex than I have in awhile. I’ve been trying to really understand all the feelings I’m experiencing, and through doing so, I think I’ve discovered something important about myself.

I work better as a human being when I’m in a relationship.

The ex was really my first “real” relationship (and what a doozey it was) and it was an incredibly educational time of my life. I realized that I’m someone who will always experience high highs and LOW lows and who will hold onto things and feel lost and need reassurance, regardless of who I have in my life. BUT, when I do have a partner-someone with whom we have committed to be there, to take care of each other, to love each other, I recover better. I center more easily after those highs and lows and I find it easier to ground myself with the reality that I am loved.

Now that I realize this about myself, I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it. For a lot of my life, really my whole life up until meeting the ex and falling in love with her straightaway, I was pretty content with the idea of being alone. It wasn’t like a sad resignation of being lonely forever-it was more that I just thought I wasn’t someone who could ever make a relationship work. But then, I had one. And I realized how it feels to be loved and I realized that I do work better when I have that person loving me and now I don’t think I can go back. One part of me loves this because it thinks this represents major growth, but another part still hates the idea of relying on someone else.

I’ve got some more thinking to do about all of this and what it means. If I work better in a relationship, should I seek one out regardless of how much I actually feel ready to give that kind of commitment? Should I actively seek to not be in a relationship until I can feel the same kind of love and support without one? Etc, etc.

Self-discovery is hard, y’all.

This Happened

I met Andrea Gibson! If you've never heard of her, I suggest first listening to "Blue Blanket,"which might ruin your day, and then reminding yourself of the hope in the world with "Say Yes."

Here's a picture I grabbed with her. I was shaking so hard and professing my love of her and explaining to her that I'm a getting a plus sign tattoo because of the words she has written that I don't even remember much of the interaction.

It was incredible, y'all.