I came across this video this morning (as I don’t have a TV I don’t see commercials in the usual way):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTZbv4fums
Turning 60 last November was very strange for me. I don’t feel 60 — what should it feel like? I think I don’t look 60 — or what my imagination says 60 should look like. Where do those images come from? And how does one change them?
Like so many women I struggle with body image. Going to the swimming pool with my daughter and grandkids while in California, I had to change into a bathing suit in a semi-public area, then walk from the change rooms to the pool (once in the pool I didn’t care anymore about the scars or cellulite or the way my belly sticks out or my boobs don’t) I do it fighting an unwanted sense of shame.
I watch my granddaughter, at age 5, completely unaware that there is any reason to feel badly about her body. I see my daughter who wears a bikini even if, after two babies, her belly is no longer flat. I am so glad that I have not passed on to her all of my traits!
One older woman dressing after a swim complimented my long skirt. She commented that at the athletic club you frequently see the same people wearing very little, and then you see them somewhere else, dressed, and they look familiar but it takes some minutes to figure out who they are.
Another woman about my daughter’s age had forgotten her towels. She walked around the shower/change rooms, drying herself and her little girl with several washcloths without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. How I envied her.
When my Beloved Man tells me that I am beautiful, that I have a beautiful body, I rejoice that as we age our eyesight diminishes. Ha! I accept his compliments with joy, but I don’t really believe him now any more than I believed Volker 40 years ago? Why?
Truly, I am grateful that, thanks to good genetics and a healthy lifestyle, I have a strong healthy body, that I can freely move through each day, play with my grandkids, make love with joy and so much more.
I resolve to keep on giving my body good food, plenty of exercise and loving care so that I can keep on feeling young. I will likely continue to feel that sense of shame about my body, but I will not live there. I will feel it, but not own it. I am beautiful, whatever my age!