Being OK

I thought maybe they’d stick around. I got so used to them. I’d look down and there they were. They were comforting. Something I’d been wishing for since I was a teenager falling asleep asking for blue eyes and unfreckled skin… and boobs. 

The blue eyes and freckle-free skin never appeared but the boobs did. I had to wait until my 38^th year, but when I got pregnant I suddenly had boobs. Not huge, mind you, but bigger than my normal barely-B self. I liked them. My husband liked them. My baby, once she was born, loved them. She still loves them even though she is no longer drinking from them. She regularly sticks her chubby little hand down my shirt and grabs hold of a nipple and proclaims happily, Booboo! Occasionally she starts to lower her head and that’s when I have to say, All gone. Say bye bye to booboo. 

And she does. 

Just like I had to. 

My body is different. I was going to write ‘after childbirth’ but that is only part of the story. Yes, this body physically changed after pregnancy and birthing a child, but this body has changed every day of my life, right? This is a more dramatic change and I feel like only part of it is due to having birthed a child. My hips are wider, my belly is not flat, my post-breastfeeding boobs are not big enough to sag but are a little less perky than they used to be. 

Deflated. 

I want to be fine with my body. I want to love my body. I just want a different body to love at this point. I can’t blame it all on the baby thing. I’m 41. I’m not as cute and perky as I used to be. A little mini-life crisis is underway (what have I accomplished in my life? Other moms get so much more done! What is my purpose? blah blah blah). I’m eating more sugar than I would like. I don’t run as much as I would like. Instead of fluctuating between 123 and 128lbs its more like 128 and 135lbs. I blamed the extra weight on extra boobs for a while (as if they weighed 10lbs) but now that those guys are gone, here we are at 135 with a big ass and poochy belly and barely Bs back in the picture. 

Sigh. 

So what’s the game plan? I used to look at heavier moms dragging their toddlers around and think all sorts of judgmental thoughts about putting down the ice cream or using the baby jogger but now I freaking get it. Its not that easy. Sometimes it is but most often its choosing between jogging and getting a really important email done or paying the bills or running up to the store without a screaming two year old. Sometimes ice cream (or bread with butter or candied pecans) tastes really, really good at nine at night after spending an hour and a half singing ‘Mommy’s songs’ to put your daughter to sleep after a long day of books and puzzles and worms in the dirt and tuna smeared faces. 

There is always the next day to ‘be better;’ to go for that run, to have self control but somehow that day slips by without exercise other than lifting your toddler into her high chair or pulling her away from the knife block. Sugar ends up in your mouth before you even know you’re reaching for that cake your sweet but enabling neighbor left on the counter. You sigh and say, Tomorrow I will be strong (and you do ten squats), tomorrow I will love this protruding belly (as you lick frosting from your fingers).

Its like being pregnant again but this time you’re the only one inside. So treat that un-baby right. Hold her, comfort her, even as she twitches and shrieks. Be gentle. Don’t look down in the shower for a while. Ask your husband to stop saying how small your boobs got (seriously). Ask yourself what can change and, if possible, take baby steps toward a different way of being. Do twenty squats. Breathe into that big old belly. Take your toddler into your arms and say, No matter what, it was worth it. Feel that truth making everything OK. 

Because it is. 

You are. 

I am. 

A-OK. 

(I also think its OK to fudge the truth, as my mom used to say, for awhile too, including telling yourself you're OK. At least for awhile. At least until you can actually do something about it. Which might be now. Which might be three years from now. Its that whole fake it til you make it thing. OK? OK.)