A Moment of Unexpected Body
I was sitting at a stoplight on my way home today - alone in my Camry in a fading Texas sunset - when I became suddenly aware of the cars on either side of me. The awareness snuck up, took its time to settle down onto me like the mist from the garden hose sprayer when the wind catches the spray. Your skin knows when it is there, but your mind takes its time acknowledging it. Ah, what is this? Cool. Light. Water. Crap, I'm trying to water the lavender, not my tennis shoes!
Some things that feel so pleasant initially - when you don't really know what's going on - can really turn sour on you.
I looked around on my left side was a girl with straw blond hair pulled into a trendy knot at the nape of her neck - 18 or so - driving a silver Mustang. Her skin was tan and powdered, appropriately bronzed and pinked and lined. She was looking out the front window of her quiet car like a print model might gaze into but away from a camera lens. She was young and thoughtful and comfortably dramatic. Her expression said: What a day. And, I am so beautiful.
On my right, which is what really woke me up from my spotlight glare to begin with, was a striking black girl in a Jeep. Same-ish age. Her music was making the windows of my car thump and rattle. I felt rattled - not annoyed by it, just suddenly, unexpectedly rattled. Her hair was a free halo of coffee curls in spite the thick band of pink, yellow and white colored cloth tied around it. Her skin was equally as smooth and otherwise perfected as the Mustang model's. The sun seemed to make her glow from the inside.
Just like the mist, a moment I was enjoying - watching the pretty things all around me, feeling good - turned a rancid green. A smelly ochre moment stuck in my car at a stoplight surrounded and trapped, pinned in by super models at a traffic light. Young, trendy super models.
Man, I felt old. Without looking, I felt every inch of my slumpy clothes, and I felt the seat belt across my mommy pot belly, which has yet to dispel itself from my otherwise tolerable body despite nine months of crazed motherhood exercise and breastfeeding. I acknowledged the tired skin under my eyes and the forming zit on my chin that can only have resulted in from a box of Junior Mints eaten the previous night in a fit of anxiety. Maybe old person anxiety.
I called my friend, who I thought could relate. Rightly so. We plotted our tummy tucks and boob jobs - neither one having believed in them until after the birth of our seconds - and lamented over times when we were at stoplights like super models: when we did our hair and make-up, wore real clothes out in public, when high heels were sexy necessities and not an imposition on balancing a baby, coffee cup and calendar while trying to unlock the car door in a busy parking lot - other crazy things moms do.
When I got home, having only slightly recovered from that moment and a box of anxiety-driven Junior Mints, king-size, I went straight here: the computer, the Mecca of answers. Oh, great Internet teach me gratitude and appreciation for my suddenly mom bod and seemingly tired mind.
Why do I feel so old and frumpy and gross at 24? Twenty-four is not old. I googled "feeling old" and found an article by a 60 year-old woman who has learned to love her body. I fell asleep half-way through it. There was a time when I appreciated my body. (I wasn't 60). I didn't weigh it or harass it with starvation. I anticipated it only getting "worse" than it was at any given point, so I loved it.
But something happened between then and now, and I don't think it has anything to do with my body. Not really.
Our bodies change. Our bodies change because they get older, true, but also because of our lives - the style, the events, the relationships. People generally gain weight when in a happy or sometimes very unhappy relationship. Depression can wear a body out. A busy, preoccupied body might be thin and transparent. I appreciated my body once. Now, not so much. I am unfamiliar with it. It doesn't seem to be mine. I don't want it, love it like I used to. What does that say about my life? Exercise, eat right, sleep, sleep, sleep.
Tune in for an autobiographical analysis of my body...Whenever I feel suited (pun intended) to get to it.
Some things that feel so pleasant initially - when you don't really know what's going on - can really turn sour on you.
I looked around on my left side was a girl with straw blond hair pulled into a trendy knot at the nape of her neck - 18 or so - driving a silver Mustang. Her skin was tan and powdered, appropriately bronzed and pinked and lined. She was looking out the front window of her quiet car like a print model might gaze into but away from a camera lens. She was young and thoughtful and comfortably dramatic. Her expression said: What a day. And, I am so beautiful.
On my right, which is what really woke me up from my spotlight glare to begin with, was a striking black girl in a Jeep. Same-ish age. Her music was making the windows of my car thump and rattle. I felt rattled - not annoyed by it, just suddenly, unexpectedly rattled. Her hair was a free halo of coffee curls in spite the thick band of pink, yellow and white colored cloth tied around it. Her skin was equally as smooth and otherwise perfected as the Mustang model's. The sun seemed to make her glow from the inside.
Just like the mist, a moment I was enjoying - watching the pretty things all around me, feeling good - turned a rancid green. A smelly ochre moment stuck in my car at a stoplight surrounded and trapped, pinned in by super models at a traffic light. Young, trendy super models.
Man, I felt old. Without looking, I felt every inch of my slumpy clothes, and I felt the seat belt across my mommy pot belly, which has yet to dispel itself from my otherwise tolerable body despite nine months of crazed motherhood exercise and breastfeeding. I acknowledged the tired skin under my eyes and the forming zit on my chin that can only have resulted in from a box of Junior Mints eaten the previous night in a fit of anxiety. Maybe old person anxiety.
I called my friend, who I thought could relate. Rightly so. We plotted our tummy tucks and boob jobs - neither one having believed in them until after the birth of our seconds - and lamented over times when we were at stoplights like super models: when we did our hair and make-up, wore real clothes out in public, when high heels were sexy necessities and not an imposition on balancing a baby, coffee cup and calendar while trying to unlock the car door in a busy parking lot - other crazy things moms do.
When I got home, having only slightly recovered from that moment and a box of anxiety-driven Junior Mints, king-size, I went straight here: the computer, the Mecca of answers. Oh, great Internet teach me gratitude and appreciation for my suddenly mom bod and seemingly tired mind.
Why do I feel so old and frumpy and gross at 24? Twenty-four is not old. I googled "feeling old" and found an article by a 60 year-old woman who has learned to love her body. I fell asleep half-way through it. There was a time when I appreciated my body. (I wasn't 60). I didn't weigh it or harass it with starvation. I anticipated it only getting "worse" than it was at any given point, so I loved it.
But something happened between then and now, and I don't think it has anything to do with my body. Not really.
Our bodies change. Our bodies change because they get older, true, but also because of our lives - the style, the events, the relationships. People generally gain weight when in a happy or sometimes very unhappy relationship. Depression can wear a body out. A busy, preoccupied body might be thin and transparent. I appreciated my body once. Now, not so much. I am unfamiliar with it. It doesn't seem to be mine. I don't want it, love it like I used to. What does that say about my life? Exercise, eat right, sleep, sleep, sleep.
Tune in for an autobiographical analysis of my body...Whenever I feel suited (pun intended) to get to it.
posted by J.Helen Shaw at 8:01 PM
