Thursday, January 17, 2013

You're so vain...

I hate my body.

There.  It's out there.

When I was pregnant, there was this glowing picture of this woman's stomach post twins.  It looked like a road map of stretch marks.  And there were these words over the picture that said something to the effect of being PROUD of the stretch marks because they were the remnants of a pregnancy that gave her the two best things a woman could have.  They reminded her of every breath the baby took and how with every mark the babies grew more and more every day and how she loved her belly because that's the belly that housed her babies before her arms could....

WHO comes up with this stuff?

When I look at my stomach, I don't think about how much I love my son, I think about how many crunches I'm going to have to do to get this stomach to not topple over the waistband of my jeans?  I don't think about birth or labor or pregnancy or any of that, I just feel overwhelmed with how much work I'm going to have to do to get back to the point where I love myself again.

I'm vain.  I know.

And I will say to my handsome husband, "I feel fat and ugly and I hate my body."  And he will say, "You just had a baby three months ago!  Give yourself time."

Am I the ONLY one that thinks that's a terrible answer?  Why isn't HE saying, "But that's the body that housed our son before our arms could!"  I think both answers would get him to the Motel 8.  Don't bother leaving the light on.

But it stems from this insecurity that the weight will never come off.  That somehow my husband will forget about what I used to look like and be appalled with what I look like now.  Or maybe even find someone new.  I've gotten to the point where I've become like a big, green, jealous monster.  I ask him stupid questions that go beyond the normal "Do I look good in this?" 

None of this is attractive, and I know this.  But it's real, and that's what this blog is about- the real stuff.

So I go to the gym two times a week and sometimes on Saturday mornings.  I got a heavy bag for Christmas and hoping to have it hung in the garage sooner rather than later.  I don't want my son to think of me as someone who is obsessed with her looks, but as someone who never quits.  As someone who always keeps her chin up. 

Good thing he's only 3 months old and I have time to work on all that, huh?