Mason and I are here in Sheboygan! Well, we were when I penned this post (12/4-8). The Blue Harbor Resort is beautiful, and the water park is exceeding our expectations. As many of you know, I've struggled with my weight my whole life, and now Mason is finding some of the same challenges and body insecurities as well. He was looking for loose shirts to wear to cover himself up before heading down to the water park. Without a second thought, I put on my swim suit and said, “Here’s the deal, we are going to have a great trip, enjoy our time together, and not let anything stand in our way. We are going down to the water park where we will ask someone to take out picture together, wearing only our swim suits and I’m going to post it on Facebook for everyone to see.” He looked at me and replied, “So you are going to post a picture of you in your swim suit on Facebook?” “Yep, and I’m not going to hide behind you either!” So here's a picture of the two of us, in our swimsuits getting ready for another time of our lives!
Life is about more than the number on the scale and I’m the first one to admit that more than one occasion has been spoiled by me being upset about my weight, body, clothes, lack of clothes, or any other number of things concerning my body image. How can I encourage him to let go and not worry about his weight when I am always worried about mine? I suppose as a society we think this is an issue that mother’s only need to deal with with their daughters, but that’s not so. I read a blog post a number of years ago that a woman wrote about not being in any family photos. She never wanted her photo taken because she was fat and she decided to let it go and step back into life with her family. I liked the post and I got it, but I wasn’t ready to really embrace that message for myself. After all, I take lots of photos with my family. Yeah, well, sort of. I make sure we are shot from the shoulders up, and when someone takes our photo and includes our bodies, I crop them. I hide behind Dave or Mason, basically, I do whatever I can to not be seen all the way. Then, on our long flight to Wisconsin I watched an episode of This Is Us and there was a very fitting exchange between two characters who are attending meetings for over eaters, Kate and Toby. The gist of it was that Toby wants to go to a party and Kate won’t agree because she's fat. Toby says he gets it, but their entire lives can’t be about their fat, at some point they need to live, and laugh, and dance, and love, and he knows she's fat, and he loves her just the way she is. Our kids don’t care if we think we are fat, or even if we are fat, they love us, they want us to play with them, and swim with them, and be with them in pictures.
So I faced my fears to put Mason at ease and I posted the photo of the two of us on Facebook. Ultimately, I’m just trying to live my best life and encourage Mason to live his, too. I hate that I struggle with my body image and how it reflects on who I am. I really want to be done with that and TRULY be grateful for all that I have, and I'm well aware, I have a lot. That public post was one step in the right direction and I’m going to try, really, truly, sincerely try to redirect my thinking when it comes to what I want or don’t want to do because of my body. I really love my life and I’m going to do my best to live it all the way, every day. Now I have gifts to wrap, baking to do, cookies to decorate, and so much more. 'Tis the season!
1 comment:
I've struggled with my body image for years. Some years (or rather weeks) I feel good about myself and don't feel the need to hide behind clothes or makeup. This summer I tried wearing a bikini to take my kids to the swimming pool every week. I only braved the bikini a couple of times. In doing so, I realised how ridiculous it was for me to shame my own daughter to NOT wear a bikini because she was so young (she wore it first). It made me remember that our ridiculous expectations are only our own. Those people who actually say the cruel remarks are usually the sad people who are unsure of themselves that I refuse to associate with anyway. I'm late to respond to this, but I was so proud of you and Mason and thought you both looked great. When we spend our time worrying about how we can HIDE what we really look like, life has a way of sneaking away and we never get the chance to actually enjoy it
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