Haunted Places of the Mind

(source)

It's a sign of my ongoing struggle with body image that I can still see the magazine layout in my head.

A pair of teenage girls roller-bladed in bathing suits in some now-defunct young teen magazine (because I was way too young for my mother to let me read Seventeen). (I think it was, in fact, Teen magazine.)

I couldn't have been much older than 7th grade. I stared at that page mercilessly, willing myself to be small enough to wear a two-piece bathing suit. When I did get skinny, I would buy the exact one on the right of the spread: still modest, a coral-colored two piece with a unique, off-the-shoulder top. I'm not sure what deluded me to think if I were thinner I would suddenly have the body of a 17-year-old, but I was sure I would look just like the girl in that spread.

I've never worn a two-piece. Not even as a child, that I can remember. 

The reason I remember that issue of the magazine so vividly is because it laid out a diet. One that WORKED! Of course! I carried the issue around, dog-eared, for weeks or even months. Trying, trying. Coral in mind.

I didn't drop weight, not even with all the tuna and frozen peas and white-meat chicken.

Somewhere around eighth grade, I hit a growth spurt and thinned out a little. Not two-piece thin. But that magazine was during the lowest point, the hidden years, the year I was bullied and it makes me want to throw up to even think about. Until I had someone call after me the slogan of a popular weight-loss commercial, every day, for an entire school year, I'm not sure I even realized I was truly overweight.

I'm fairly certain not a day's gone by since seventh grade when I thought of my body in a positive manner.

To remember my solidary focus on one coral-clad model makes me sick. But I still want that now grossly out-of-date bathing suit.

----
Subscribe to the RSS feed or by e-mail.
Twitter much? I'm vanderbiltwife there, too.
Join my Facebook Fan Group

What Doesn't Kill Me Gives Me Scars

 I have this thing about stretch marks.

I think they should be reserved for women who have been skinny all their lives and then get pregnant. For those of us where that's not the case, we probably already have some non-baby stretch marks hanging around, thankyouverymuch.

With Libbie, I didn't get any stretch marks until I was at least 35 weeks. I was sure I had evaded the horror. And then they broke out like a rash on my lower abdomen. It made me cry.

There has already been an outbreak of new stretch marks on my belly this go-around. I am fairly sure Baby David is going to be 14 pounds coming out, as much as he pushes and shoves and tries to make more room, and as big as I am already. I am in waddling mode.

The new stretch marks make me want to cry every bit as much as the old ones ... but I am too busy sleeping and chasing a toddler to have time to cry.

There are so many other things I consider "wrong" with my body that I don't know why these little pale lines bother me so much. But I obsess. I poke. I prod. I rub on cocoa butter.

And then I say things to my husband like, "Are you sure you'll still love me when I deflate and still have all these nasty marks all over my belly?"

He is flabbergasted, because he cannot imagine what's going through my mind. He looks me in the eye and says, "I will always love you."

I believe him. I knew I loved that man.

Does everyone have their own pregnant obsession? One change that bothers them above all else? Or is it just me?


----
Subscribe to the RSS feed or by e-mail.
Twitter much? I'm vanderbiltwife there, too.
Join my Facebook Fan Group
A few of my favorite things on my Tumblr page