A Little Work...

This is going to be a body issue/vanity blog so if that sort of thing bores you to tears go ahead and skip it. I won't be insulted.

This week has been a week full of body stuff. One friend of mine posted this really great exchange about how we all try to hard for body positivity. Loving all of the things about our body that we haven't in the past. The whole I don't have stretch marks I have tiger stripes thing. And how that is actually really hard and maybe not even necessary. Instead of positivity how about neutrality? I don't love my stretch marks, but they are there anyway and oh well. 

Here is the actual post (spelling choices are theirs):

"User: fairycosmos
look. i don't think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don't think they're tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don't think my acne is beautiful. i don't think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they're human. and i don't think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don't think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.

User: serotonin-sunrise
fun fact: this POV is actually called "body neutrality" and it's SO MUCH more accessible/realistic for a lot of people. it's based on the idea that the way we look is the least interesting/important thing about who we are, and that our bodies are worthy of respect regardless if they fit the mold of the current beauty ideals."

I like that in a lot of ways. I am more than what I look like for sure. It's very empowering in all the best ways.

And because, quite frankly, I hate my stretch marks and my cellulite and my acne scars. Hate them. Getting to a point where I just feel neutral about them might be easier than getting to a place of love.

I can remember sitting in class at East West and learning that cellulite is all dependent on your connective tissues. That's why there are skinny people with cellulite and heavy people with none. It has nothing to do with fat and everything to do with fascia. I thought to myself that day that if only I had known that growing up it would have changed everything. I NEVER wore shorts once I hit high school. I am extremely self conscious in swimsuits and in leggings. I hate the dimples. I have tried creams and jellies and special rollers and on and on trying to get rid of it. Just to find that it will always be part of me because of the way my body is put together. What a huge shift that would have made.

Except it wouldn't have. Because I know now that my level of fitness has nothing to do with the level of cellulite I have. That it's not anything but genetics. And I still hate it. So...yeah. 

Body image stuff is always so weird. And so personal. 

There is an author out there in the wild who has had the total "Republican Woman Package" done. She posted the 10 year challenge that was out there on Facebook. Her picture from ten years ago was of her as a very attractive red head. Now? She's got the long blonde extensions, the fake boobs, the lip plump, the nose sculpt. Instead of being dressed in a cute outfit she's dressed in a tight red dress (power color, doncha know?) with high heels. I told a friend she looked like she went into the plastic surgeons office and asked for the "Ivanka." It's a Stepford Wives sort of thing. They get more conservative and they go blonder and more and more Barbie. But you know she feels gorgeous now. And all of her social circle that looks just like her all feel they are gorgeous as well. In their very same ideal of what beauty should be. 

A friend of mine has gotten a series of procedures over the past few months. She's really open about it, so I'm not talking out of turn here. She has, for as long as I've known her, had things she wanted to get done and she finally took the opportunity to do them. She had to do it in phases and the first things she got done was her neck lifted, her chin done and I believe her cheeks sculpted (I can't remember for sure and sure I could go check but it's not important to the story so I won't.)

The first series of photos she posted were right after surgery. And wow...it looked so painful. A lot of bruising, which makes sense, trauma to the skin even if it's planned trauma is still trauma. Then she posted a few after the swelling went down. I couldn't wrap my brain around the changes. As in I would see a picture of her and it was like I was looking at her cousin, or maybe a sister. Definitely a resemblance but it wasn't quite her. And at the time I thought it was probably because I was seeing a still photo. If I heard her voice and saw her mannerisms my head would catch up to the new look a lot quicker. 

I asked her if she had a hard time seeing herself in the mirror and recognizing herself as herself. If the changes were enough that they didn't match her vision in her head. 

Part of that was (side trip here) due to my experience during the pandemic. Like I mentioned before, my hair stopped growing after a few months. Pretty sure it was stress related but I had about a half inch of growth in the beginning and then nothing. So while all of my friends were seeing their natural hair color (for some of them) for the first time in a long time, or were experimenting with long hair, or seeing how they looked with gray hair I had basically the same hairstyle with just a faded red instead of my deep red. I had serious hair envy.

I have always said that if my hair would go completely gray I would embrace it. I like the gray hair I do have. It's silver and shiny and lovely. But I still didn't really know how much I had. So as I watched my friends embrace their gray I was envious. When we were finally able to go back to getting our hair done Sara brought my hair back to close to my natural color and we changed the style. I was going to grow it out and see what I was working with. So in that lull while my stress was leveling back out we cheated it ahead with a color wash. Sara looked at my roots and let me know that I wasn't anywhere close to full gray yet. Maybe a few more than a few years ago, but not a ton more. Not at a level where I would be happy with it. But brown we could do. So brown we did. 

And I hated it. 

I hated the style. I hated the color. I hated the fact that every time I looked in the mirror I was reminded about how much I hated it. I felt like there was a football on my head and I hated it. NOT Sara's fault, by the way, she did exactly what I wanted done. And even patiently waited through two cycles with me doing it to make sure it was that I really did hate it. Because, yes, I kept it for a little bit to make sure. I mean if it was just a matter of not being used to it then that would fade quickly. But it wasn't that. I wanted my red hair back and the style I thought I wanted I didn't, I just wanted change. Luckily my hair started to grow again and I am able to get change that way as I grow it out for a while. 

So I wondered if after having her chin done, which she had wanted for ages, what did she think? Did she recognize herself? Did it feel like her? 

And she said it felt like she was seeing the her in the mirror that she used to see. It made me smile to think of. Imagining her looking in the mirror and smiling at herself, "Welcome back." 

AND...it took until her December trip to Mexico for me to realize why I was having the disconnect. The pictures she had posted all had like tiny little smiles. The pictures from Mexico had the full face smile. And I recognized her again. It wasn't the work so much as the pose.

She had another round of work done this past week and posted a picture from her recovery bed. Even knowing how much pain she must be in, she was smiling and looking very happy. She was finally getting the body she had been planning on for so long. 

So it's all made me think.

Body neutrality is all well and good. I mean I'd love to get there. I'd love to be able to look in the mirror and not worry about if I felt pretty enough. Look and acknowledge that there are those parts of me that I honestly am not the fondest of, but eh, who cares? And I for sure don't want to become the Barbie prototype. I don't want to look like all of my friends and I don't want my friends to all look like me. I mean, I will change a hairstyle if I feel like too many other people have the same one. I have always dreamed of lifting and tucking and filling my way into smoothness but I'm terrified that something will go wrong in the surgery and I'll end up looking worse. Or that I will hate the scars more than I hated the droop.

So what is the answer?

I don't have one. 

I see my friends who are body positive being really happy.
I see my friends who are body neutral being really happy.
I see my friends who color their hair being really happy.
I see my friends who have gone all natural being really happy.
I see my friends who would never lift and tuck being really happy.
I see my friends who would (as one put it) live in the surgeons waiting room if they could afford it being really happy.

There is no "The" answer.

Just your answer. 

And for me, right now, it's working toward neutrality while still lifting and sucking in imagining a miracle surgery that would make everything "just so."

And flexing in the mirror when I work out. My biceps still make me very happy.

So find your answer. What makes you happy? Any of the above? A little of all of it? Find the place where you feel your best about you. 

And don't worry if it looks like you have a football on your head. Sara can fix it.