I just finished skimming through an article that talked about Robyn Lawley's recent brave act of posting a picture of herself in a bikini, airbrush and makeup free, and how she has made the leap from straight size to plus size modeling. She's a size 12. She's considered a "plus size". You can read the full article here: https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/fashion/news/a/24526623/robyn-lawley-shares-unretouched-bikini-photo/ I applaud this, simply because if one woman does it, then others may follow.
It brought to mind a bit of unpleasantness from my own tween years. I was always a curvy girl. Like a lot of tween girls, I had that extra baby fat that just wouldn't go away, and so when mom took me shopping for clothes I had to wear a "6x" instead of a "6". I remember feeling ashamed and knowing that there was something wrong with me, because I wasn't "skinny".
Now that I'm forty, I understand that what drives the market and the public's opinion of the female persona is sheer insanity. Taking a look at Robyn Lawley, I can tell you that a size 12 body on a 6 ft 2 inch model isn't going to look the same as on a 5 ft 6 inch average woman. This is where the fashion industry needs to change. We need to get over the expectation that women look like a set of Stepford wives and embrace the differences that all women have: short, tall, skinny, fat, big hips, big boobs, no ass, no boobs...these traits are not what make a woman. We need to stop being so obsessed with putting women in categories, just because it's ridiculous. Have you ever heard a man complain about being "pear-shaped"? Have you ever looked at a man and thought, he's fat because he doesn't have a thigh gap? It's gone beyond ridiculous.
It also brings to mind the silly little memes I see on Pinterest every now and then. Memes that proclaim: Real Women Have Curves. Excuse me, but every woman I have ever met is real. They lived and breathed, had children and big, gigantic hearts. Being curvy is not a pre-requisite for being "real". Neither is displaying a full set of ribs.
It is my ardent wish that women everywhere would just love themselves. Become obsessed with being healthy. Become obsessed with who you are. Inside. Become obsessed with making good choices, and doing the best things for yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically, and I promise you, what you see in the mirror will improve each day, no matter what shape you're in.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
How I Spent One Weekend of My Summer Vacation or How To Do Warrior Pose in a Hotel Bathroom
This past weekend I made a trip down to Corpus Christi with my mother and three of my kids. My niece was getting baptized and we wanted to be there for that occasion. So we piled into Mom's car and took off.
Two hours from home we hit the worst traffic jam I have ever seen. Going five miles an hour, sometimes stopping for ten minutes or more at a time was sheer agony. The highway was cut down to two lanes and there was no end in sight. So we amused ourselves by making stupid jokes and eventually, I read everyone a story about a man who was afraid of heights. The story ended with the man clinging precariously to a ladder while his friends left him there. We were irritated after that. Everyone in the car had to pee, except for the baby, who was wearing a diaper. We passed a charter bus from Mexico and I considered getting out of the car and knocking on the door to ask for the baño. At one point we passed a port-a-john on the side of the road that was left there by some workers. A lady and her daughter actually stopped to use it. (Ick.) Another woman got out of her car and retrieved something from her trunk. Later we saw her dumping the contents of a bottle onto the road. This wouldn't have been questionable except that it had a pStyle attached to it. A pStyle allows women to pee on the go. Do I need to say more? No, I do not.
We were finally able to exit and found a Family Dollar, which had a line to the bathroom. The people waiting there had all been stuck on the freeway, and informed us that three 18-wheelers had been involved in an accident. The woman next to me had a tattoo that said, "Rest In Peace, A.J. Warren." I wondered if we were related. There are a lot of Warrens in my line. I spared a brief thought for the demise of A.J. Warren and thought about asking the woman who A.J. Warren was, but then decided it might be rude and anyway, at that point the bathroom opened up and I forgot everything else.
On the way out we bumped into a cop escorting a shackled female prisoner into the store. They probably had to pee too.
Outside a news station was doing a story on the accident and the kids asked Are we There yet? We laughed. And laughed.
Finally, at about ten pm, we arrived in Corpus Christi and checked into our hotel. The kids had never stayed in a hotel before and thought it was the coolest thing ever and announced that they wanted to live there. I just wanted to go to sleep. I went into the bathroom and thought, I will do some yoga poses to loosen up and get rid of some of the stress from that very long car trip. I came to the conclusion that if you are staying at a hotel, then there is just enough room to do a warrior pose in the bathroom. I did not do a sun salutation because I was too grumpy. I decided to take the warrior pose into a downward dog and then I realized, I just touched the bathroom floor with my hands!!!!!! Gross! At that point yoga was over and I scrubbed my hands until they had the texture of sandpaper.
The next day was better. It was better because we got to see our family, and we went to the beach. How I love the beach! I love palm trees! I love sitting in the water and feeling the waves smash into me! And the kids had a great time. Of course, there was that moment of truth. That moment of truth when you're wearing a bathing suit and you have to walk out there, with your porcelain skin and extra pounds and you hope like hell that you don't blind somebody with the glaring whiteness of your flesh. But then I thought, I only have a couple of hours at the beach, and I love this swimming suit. And I will stay Glaringly White if I don't walk out there and get some help with Vitamin D. So I did. Nobody cared. I was so offended. I mean, the paparazzi should have been there. What is this world coming to??
The only mishap at the beach was that my two year old threw a seashell on the ground that I thought was cool, so we took it back to the house and found out that something was alive inside it. I felt bad. Lucky for me, my sister-in-law had a critter keeper and my nieces were thrilled with their new "pet", which would be relinquished to the sea the following day.
I have nothing else to add except that I love Corpus Christi. It's a great town, and they have amazing bead stores with things you can't find anywhere else. (Water buffalo teeth, anyone?) We headed out of town on Sunday and I just want to say that a) I was not allowed to listen to Ozzy Osbourne on the way home, and this hurt my heart and b)My sister-in-law Heather makes the best cake balls in the entire universe, and this should be recorded in all the history books so that all children may know this. The End.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Ten Years Ago Today
Ten years ago today my father was very ill with cancer of the bile duct. He'd been ill for a long time and I think I was largely in denial about it. He had spent much of my life complaining about various aches and pains and so when he began to complain about this, I only listened with half an ear. By the time he was bedridden I didn't visit him that often. I always regret that now.
July 3 of ten years ago was a day when I was supposed to go visit him. I had a baby, and two other small children. We were supposed to visit him at a particular time, but getting babies out the door is difficult when they're small. I called to tell him we were going to come later in the day. I gave him the time we would be there. He was barely coherent.
A couple of hours later his wife called to tell me that he had passed away. The disbelief and shock were overwhelming and it was my task to call and inform my brother, who was at a blood drive, of what had just taken place. I didn't want to call my brother. I knew that every minute that I delayed calling him was one more minute that his life would stay normal, but also that it couldn't be put off. My baby brother...who I could not save from this train wreck that I was about to unleash into his life. At that point I got to my father's house as soon as I could. He was still there, laying in his bed, and the feeling in the room was so quiet and powerful. I couldn't believe he was gone. I could still feel him everywhere. And as his daughter, his "little doll" as he liked to call me, I wanted to beg him to come back. Come back, because there was too much I didn't get to say, and too much left undone. Come back, because you're still laying there, and shouldn't it be easy, for a mathematician and engineer, to figure out a way to fix this?
But he was gone and the funeral home had been called and I had to watch them carry my father out the door by hand because the gurney wouldn't fit back there into his sickroom. Really, no one should ever have to see that. I still remember it to this day and I probably won't ever forget.
My purpose in writing these memories down is not to be morbid or dwell on sad things. It is simply to record it. Time blunts the edges of things. Losing a parent is a traumatic experience. Some people will tell you it's the circle of life and the natural order of things. Parents pass on and kids take up the torch and move forward in life. Regardless of how you look at it...whether it's God's plan or just the way things are...it's painful and it takes a long time to get over. I am still grieving for him, all of these years later. It's something I had to learn how to do because in the beginning, I didn't allow myself to. I shrugged off the pain of it, just like I shrug off a lot of things that hurt like hell. It reminds me of a kid I saw in a store once. I worked at a JC Penney department store in a bad part of town. A kid misbehaved in the store and his mother spanked him right there in the store in front of everyone. That kid drew himself up and refused to cry and said with all the attitude he could muster, "Didn't hurt." That's me. It should be tattooed on my forehead.
But now I can admit that it does hurt and it still hurts a little every day, when I think of it or really recall what was lost. It's a painful lesson to learn, that people are not permanent. They will come and go in your life, they will hurt you, disappoint you, use you, leave you. My father was no different. What I try to remember of my father...what I hold in my heart...is that he was the only dad for me. He was funny and quirky. He had a ridiculous sense of humor that was as likely to elicit groans as laughter. He was not afraid to act silly in front of us in order to amuse us. He was a good cook. He loved the Cowboys and Star Trek. He loved cold weather and he loved camping and fishing. He was brilliant in his mind. He worked as a lineman for TXU and went to school at night, obtaining a master's degree and becoming an electrical engineer. In that, he taught me that it's never too late to improve yourself or achieve the goals you set for yourself. He was my daddy. I was his princess. He wasn't perfect. No one is.
What I know now is that forgiveness is essential for the people in our lives. I was angry at my father for a long time...for divorcing my mother, for not being able to communicate with us, for a thousand petty things. What I know now is that these things don't matter. If you love someone, you have to let go of the little things and you have to recognize that they are as human as you are,and the expectations you have of them shouldn't be any different or any greater than you have of yourself. I still love my father. I still miss him, even after all of this time. And though some may believe differently, what I know is that God's hand has been in my life from the beginning, and that I have not seen the last of my dad.
July 3 of ten years ago was a day when I was supposed to go visit him. I had a baby, and two other small children. We were supposed to visit him at a particular time, but getting babies out the door is difficult when they're small. I called to tell him we were going to come later in the day. I gave him the time we would be there. He was barely coherent.
A couple of hours later his wife called to tell me that he had passed away. The disbelief and shock were overwhelming and it was my task to call and inform my brother, who was at a blood drive, of what had just taken place. I didn't want to call my brother. I knew that every minute that I delayed calling him was one more minute that his life would stay normal, but also that it couldn't be put off. My baby brother...who I could not save from this train wreck that I was about to unleash into his life. At that point I got to my father's house as soon as I could. He was still there, laying in his bed, and the feeling in the room was so quiet and powerful. I couldn't believe he was gone. I could still feel him everywhere. And as his daughter, his "little doll" as he liked to call me, I wanted to beg him to come back. Come back, because there was too much I didn't get to say, and too much left undone. Come back, because you're still laying there, and shouldn't it be easy, for a mathematician and engineer, to figure out a way to fix this?
But he was gone and the funeral home had been called and I had to watch them carry my father out the door by hand because the gurney wouldn't fit back there into his sickroom. Really, no one should ever have to see that. I still remember it to this day and I probably won't ever forget.
My purpose in writing these memories down is not to be morbid or dwell on sad things. It is simply to record it. Time blunts the edges of things. Losing a parent is a traumatic experience. Some people will tell you it's the circle of life and the natural order of things. Parents pass on and kids take up the torch and move forward in life. Regardless of how you look at it...whether it's God's plan or just the way things are...it's painful and it takes a long time to get over. I am still grieving for him, all of these years later. It's something I had to learn how to do because in the beginning, I didn't allow myself to. I shrugged off the pain of it, just like I shrug off a lot of things that hurt like hell. It reminds me of a kid I saw in a store once. I worked at a JC Penney department store in a bad part of town. A kid misbehaved in the store and his mother spanked him right there in the store in front of everyone. That kid drew himself up and refused to cry and said with all the attitude he could muster, "Didn't hurt." That's me. It should be tattooed on my forehead.
But now I can admit that it does hurt and it still hurts a little every day, when I think of it or really recall what was lost. It's a painful lesson to learn, that people are not permanent. They will come and go in your life, they will hurt you, disappoint you, use you, leave you. My father was no different. What I try to remember of my father...what I hold in my heart...is that he was the only dad for me. He was funny and quirky. He had a ridiculous sense of humor that was as likely to elicit groans as laughter. He was not afraid to act silly in front of us in order to amuse us. He was a good cook. He loved the Cowboys and Star Trek. He loved cold weather and he loved camping and fishing. He was brilliant in his mind. He worked as a lineman for TXU and went to school at night, obtaining a master's degree and becoming an electrical engineer. In that, he taught me that it's never too late to improve yourself or achieve the goals you set for yourself. He was my daddy. I was his princess. He wasn't perfect. No one is.
What I know now is that forgiveness is essential for the people in our lives. I was angry at my father for a long time...for divorcing my mother, for not being able to communicate with us, for a thousand petty things. What I know now is that these things don't matter. If you love someone, you have to let go of the little things and you have to recognize that they are as human as you are,and the expectations you have of them shouldn't be any different or any greater than you have of yourself. I still love my father. I still miss him, even after all of this time. And though some may believe differently, what I know is that God's hand has been in my life from the beginning, and that I have not seen the last of my dad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)