I have a little extra fat on my butt today.

You will get this in a minute.

Today it happened again, just like it has in the past.  It always happens when I am least expecting it, and sometimes it is hard to tell if it only happens when I am most vulnerable or if it just simply makes me vulnerable.  Either way it is never a great thing.  You may have guessed already that today I went up a pants size. 

It always sort of sneaks up on me, I am nearly always surprised when I have put on a little weight, and yet I always know that I am not doing what is necessary to keep the weight off.  I guess I am still just not ready to accept the fact that I have to watch what I eat and work out.  My family can concur that a majority of my life I spent stick thin.  Hard to believe, I know it, but it wasn’t until I was 19/20 that I really began to struggle with my weight.  I can remember being able to eat whatever I wanted and never gaining a pound.  I graduated high school a whopping 112 pounds (at 5’7”).  So, sometimes I still have that mentality; sometimes I can’t believe that my weight has become an area in my life that I struggle the very most.

I handled today just as poorly as all the other mornings.  You see, since I put on my initial weight I have gained and lost, gained and lost, and gained and lost.  I suppose that I will probably deal with those ups and downs for the rest of my life.  So, today really wasn’t anything new.  I immediately started to punish myself, just like all of the other times.  Telling myself how ridiculous I am, how obviously incapable I am, and how awful I look; beating myself up for everything I have eaten in the last month and every opportunity I missed to do something active.  Just like all of the other times I was incredibly too hard on myself.

I know no one probably wants to read another blog about weight or how women are insecure, and I know what I am about to say isn’t really that revolutionary, but I just feel like I need to say it.  When I was 17 years old I hated my body too.  I was stick thin, had absolutely no shape, no boobs, and constantly had inquiries from my guidance councilor about my eating habits (yes, she was implying that I had an eating disorder…I was young but not stupid.).  So, is it my weight that is the issue?  Or is it the way that I view myself that is the problem?

A sobering moment occurred to me today, one day (by the grace of God) I might be a mother.  Even more sobering, I might be a mother to a little girl.  I know in my heart that she will be the most beautiful and perfect thing in my world.  How on earth am I ever supposed to show her how unspeakably precious she is if I can’t show that to myself?  Seriously.

As I am sure you all know, babies are not really at the top of my priority list.  My brother and I were the two youngest in our generation, so I wasn’t raised up in a family of babies.  It wasn’t until my cousins had children that I really even understood how amazing babies and young children are.  They are so innocent and un-bogged down by the worries of the world.  It scares me to look at my little cousins and think about how the world, one day, will give them insecurity, or that they will ever be treated poorly.  There is just a part of me that wants so badly to protect them from that.  I can only imagine how parents feel every day.

I have three little cousins that are girls, and they are absolutely beautiful.  It always makes me laugh whenever I go home because they are each so different and their personalities grow every day.  The eldest one has a very special place in my heart, because I have spent the most time around her.  I babysat her while I was taking time off from grad school and she is the first baby I have ever (sort of) taken care of.  She grows every single day, and I am always amazed (and a little saddened) by how big she is getting.  She has no problem with just being who she is and is at that age where she is so free and so happy.  She is my hero.  I could stand to learn a lot from my little cousins on just being who I am.  More importantly, I could stand to teach them that they can continue to just be who they are.

Maybe you aren’t like me, maybe no other girl out there is like me, and I actually pray that is true.  But if you are, if you make comments to yourself (and other people) about your weight, or you cringe at the thought of having to try on clothes or wear a bathing suite, if you are hiding yourself, then maybe it is time to stop and ask yourself "why?".  Maybe weight isn’t an issue.  Maybe it is something else, like your teeth, or acne, or whatever other possible thing that you can possibly not like about yourself.  Maybe it is just time to stop, and to love. 

I know how cliché this all sounds and how often we can read things like this and agree but not truly hear.  I do believe that it is time to start hearing though, ladies.  Very few of us will not have a child one day, very few of us will not have a small someone looking at our actions and picking up on our behaviors.  It is like my Dad always says, “If you want to see all of your bad habits mirrored back to you, have children.” Do we want to continue to perpetuate the cycle of insecurity?  Or do we want for our daughters to see imperfect women that embrace and love themselves, just the way that they are?  We should be teaching them to take care of themselves and to live healthy happy lives... but with an emphasis on the HAPPY part.

 

Photo credit to my amazing cousin Cara, and Mother credits to her and her sister Jennifer.

So, from this day forth I, Jessie Vipham, being 164lbs, with a gap in my front teeth and legs that are the size of tree trunks, hope that I can cut myself a break.  I hope to realize that being healthy and fit are important to my happiness but that sometimes in the morning your pants just don’t fit.  I hope that I realize in those moments that I have a choice, a choice to love myself.  I hope that I stop feeling horrified when a picture of me goes up on Facebook with that extra skin under my chin showing.  I hope that I can force myself to get into a swim suite and play on a beach with my children… dimply butt, stretch marks and all.  I hope I can embrace every wrinkle and sun mark that I am sure are in my future, and I hope that I will love my grey hair too.  Most importantly, I hope that I can show my daughter that she can do the exact same thing, and that we will never have to be at a certain age to be free and happy.

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.  Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:2-5