bodying

I am a perfect replica of my mother's body, but in petite proportion. The long neck, the long torso, the long arms, the small chest and flat stomach, the tiny waist-- and then all of this sloping outward into broad hips, sturdy legs, dense calves, and strong and flexible ankles into able feet.

hello, Sun!

My face? I owe that to my Norwegian grandmother. But my body is all my mother.

I'm so glad she gave it to me! I regularly put up with rude comments about my size and it's impossible to find clothes that fit me off the rack, but my favorite part of my body is that it works! and it's mine! When as a young woman I looked around and realized that "woman" came in very different shapes, that somehow revealed to me that mine was its own type of beautiful. I'll never walk a runway, but I have a wonderful, laughing time chasing wildlife in my backyard and racing my husband to the grocery cart and playing in the snow.

paulaleme.com

>> So you there! --yeah, you:

Today, don't judge your body. Just enjoy it!

#44. Realizing that my life is better than I dreamed about as a kid.

I live in a house with a yard. I have a nice car (a 2001 Honda Civic, but I think it’s pretty nice :) and I own a computer and a convection toaster oven. I’m sleeping on clean sheets and I’m watering plants and watching the hastas grow under my front window. I’m fit and healthy; my back is strong. I get my hair done in a real salon and I go to the dentist for cleanings. I have friends— good people, fun people, people I can openly share with. 

These were all things I didn’t have as a child, things I used to long for. I yearned for clothes from Old Navy, I pined after clean cars and fresh fruit, I wished to live in a place to which I could invite people. And now I have all these things, all these things and more. 

But it’s more than the things. 

I have a Savior, my Lord Jesus Christ, and He has lavished on me so many gifts. I have a confidence I never had as a child, a sense that it’s okay to speak my mind. I have a husband— something I didn’t really long for as I child or a teenager (back then I thought love was for the romantically foolish), but caught me by surprise and totally remapped my interior life. I have a college degree…  and now I’m finishing up my masters degree. I understand my place in the world. I feel now; I experience emotion in a way I never did before, deeply. I have a voice, I’ve been gifted, I know what it means to live.

I’m no longer the child that I was ashamed to be. I’m a woman, a very blessed woman looking to the future with hope and enjoying the present moment with deep satisfaction.