She Thinks I Am Beautiful

This is a post that I wrote for This is a Woman a little while back. This site, and  The Shape of a Mother, are two truly beautiful communities of women and mothers navigating the world of self worth and body image.

I’ve posted on SOAM before about my body and how birthing my daughter had affected my self esteem and body image. I’d like to write a little bit about some realizations I have had since then about my health issues and how I feel as a woman.

I have been ‘sick’ for most of my life. It started out as a case of mono that just never seemed to go away. At eleven years of age I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and told I would feel sick for my whole life. Whenever I tried to talk to a doctor in the years to come ( I always thought there must be something else besides fm going on with me) I was told I just wasn’t taking good enough care of myself, and that was why I felt awful. Seriously, I simply CANNOT remember a time in my life that I wasn’t tired and in some type of pain, but to put all of that on someone? It was MY fault, even though I was doing everything ‘right’, that I felt awful? I hated my body and all of its pains and limitations. I hated my small stature and pale skin that I felt just advertised to the world even more how ‘fragile’ and broken I really was. I had some anxiety that went along with this. I always felt like there was something MORE I needed to be doing. From cleaning house, to raising my daughter, I NEVER felt I had everything taken care of. I never thought I would feel like a REAL woman. REAL women were strong and vibrant, not small and weak. I tried to convince everyone in my life that I felt better than I did, never wanting to upset them or have them think I wasn’t doing ‘enough’ to care for myself. After years of having conventional medicine fail me I found an amazing energy healer who not only helped me feel ‘normal’ at last, but helped to calm my troubled heart.

I know you are probably wondering what all of this has to do with how I feel about body image, but I am getting to it I promise!

Fast forward to this year. I found out about a member of my community who was desperately in need of a kidney transplant and wouldn’t live the average three year wait on the national donor registry to receive one. I felt moved by his story and decided that I needed to get tested to see if I was a match. I researched the safety of the procedure and felt that there was probably little chance I would pass the rigorous tests I would be put through to be deemed ‘healthy’ enough for surgery. Wouldn’t you guess it? I was found to be in amazing health and matched wonderfully with him! Valentine’s Day this year I gave my kidney to my new friend. It was not only the best gift to him, but the best I could give myself! I had spent years at war with my body to come out on the other side healthy enough to improve the life of another human being. I have five little scars on my tummy from the surgery. Five little scars that seem to orbit around the network of stretch marks left from my daughter. I love they way they look and how they make me feel, my little marks that love left. No matter HOW sick or tired or any amount of pain I may have in my life in the years to come, I’ll never feel weak again. My body gave life, twice! It can do amazing things!

I woke up this morning to my daughter snuggling in bed next to me. She rolled over and put her hand up to my cheek and stoked it lovingly. “Mommy,” she said, ” I love you”. “Mommy, you are beautiful”. Strange as it sounds her tiny little voice seemed to echo a new one in me. I never used to think I was beautiful. Having potential maybe, but not beautiful. Now? Now, I know I am.

I Smell a Smell

I remember reading when I was pregnant with the Peanut, that pregnancy can seem to enhance a woman's sense of smell. I beg to disagree, helpful pregnancy book. I think it is something that lies dormant in every woman, a super sense if you may, that becomes activated the minute you are pregnant and stays until the day you die.
My mother is a perfect example of this. I swear she could have worked with the police on sniffing out drugs on people at the airport. I'd be sitting in the kitchen, enjoying a pb&j, and my mother would come in with a look on her face that I can only describe as the 'I Smell a Smell' face. Of course I could never smell whatever it was that she was talking about, but that never deterred her. She would hunt down whatever the offending scent was with such singleminded determination it would put any pig to shame( pigs have an excellent sense of smell, did you know that)? Sometimes she would never find the source of the smell but I remember one occasion where she walked in from the backyard, triumphant look replacing the I Smell a Smell face, to announce that a man had been walking past our house smoking a cigarette. He had been smoking and walking past our house that had all of the windows and doors shut, there wasn't even a breeze that day.
From that day forward I would drive my smoking friends NUTS by insisting they never smoke around me. "You don't understand MAN! My mom is like the domestic version of Spider Man, with a tingling 'Mother sense' for shit like cigarette smoke."
I was very proud today to realize that I too have the I Smell a Smell face. Although my husband calls it the 'kitty stink face'. You know, the look that cats make when they smell something strange, mouth partly open and slightly disgusted? I wasn't quite sure what it was that I was smelling at the time, but I found a small piece of carrot that Ari (puppy daughter) had hidden under the couch cushions and I can no longer smell anything out of place in the house!
So, how about you? Do you have a kitty stink face? Did your mother? Curious minds would love to know!


Namaste,


H*

This thing called blogging

After one previously failed attempt at starting a blog, I decided to launch this one. Why you may ask? I often find myself throughout the day narrating my own life as if I were reading about what I was doing and not actually experiencing it myself. While I know this makes me a big weirdo that spends entirely too much time reading fiction, I think it also warrants an outlet in the form of this blog.
I think the title says it all as far as what I will be writing about. I am each of those things, but not simply just one at a time. Lacking a specific community of other Mothers who are Pagan and also Vegan, I just decided to start one myself.
So there you are folks! I may actually post something of significance later today or tomorrow, and would very much appreciate comments!

Namaste,


H*