Body Gratitude

With all that has been happening in our world, I have been thinking a lot about how I feel about my body. Last week I heard a young man say to his partner something I have heard my very own partner say to me: “don’t tell me what I like and don’t like, and what I find beautiful”. I watched her face as he echoed words I had heard before, in fact many times... and not by just my own partner. Her face revealed both surprise and gratitude.

We can never know what is in the mind of another person. When we say to them “you feel,” “you think,” “you believe,” what we are really saying is we know better than they do how they think feel and believe, and the truth of the matter is we don’t. We can’t.

I recently had a conversation with my best friend. We were talking about confidence and our bodies and how we felt about them. I shared with her that I was going to go paddle boarding and was looking forward to being out on the water. She said to me, “You know I own a one piece suit. I don’t know where it is. And I will never wear one again. I only wear a bikini”. Huh? I thought. Tell me more, I said. She replied, “My body is not offensive. My body does so much for me. It allows me to do all that I do and experience, both good and bad”.

Then it happened. She said to me, “I dare you to buy a two-piece and wear it to the lake.” I began to feel my face quiver. The two voices in my head took sides and became ready to fight for their position. One side said, “No way, you are out of your mind, there is no %^$&%@#! way.” The other side said, “Game on”.

We continued to talk about bodies and Sonja Renee Taylor’s work The Body is not an Apology, and then said our good-byes with the final word from my friend “send me a picture”. Yea right I thought.

And then I did the thing I feared. I drove myself to Walmart to buy a two-piece. I walked into the store hoping beyond all hope that they would be completely out of two piece suits my size. As fate would have it, not only did they have multiple suits in my size, they were on sale for $5 each piece! Now I really had no excuse.

I stood at the racks and looked at the suits and thought, “Who am I kidding? Me in a two piece?” I am sure to the other shoppers watching, I looked like a deer in the headlights. I looked at rack after rack of suits. I would look at them and then look to see if anyone was watching. It was almost as if I was doing something unacceptable, dirty, or shameful, like stealing a suit that was for some other persons’s body— surely not mine!

I finally found one that I thought covered enough of my body and yet was still was a two piece. I got the swim suit home and took a picture of spread out on my bed and sent my friend the picture. She quickly replied “on your body”. Never one to leave a challenge on the table I went in and put it on. Wouldn’t you know it I had bought a size bigger than I needed. “Aha” another way to get out of it. I slipped my cover up on and snapped a selfie and sent it to my friend. Again she quickly replied “smartass”. Well, she was right.

My husband got home and he asked if I was ready to go to the lake. Well, I had the suit on and I could leave my cover up on, so I could honestly say I wore a bikini to the lake. Off we went to the lake. I convinced myself that I shouldn’t wear a bikini to the lake, let alone write a blog about it as a therapist.

I had told myself terrible things— shameful things. Plus-size girls at 55 are not attractive and that no one would want to see me in my suit— or worse yet, I was showing too much flesh. We got the paddle board to the lake and what happened next surprised me. I took off my cover up and got on my paddle board. What was even more surprising was no one but me gave two pickles what I was wearing. No one shrieked in horror. No one told me to cover up. As a matter of fact, no one said anything about my suit. Or my body.

People talked to us as we paddled and hung out on our board. The thing that surprised me the most was that I really enjoyed being not all covered up while out on the water. I could move easily and the warmth of the breeze felt amazing on my skin. I was really enjoying myself. While I was not paying attention my partner snapped a picture of me and sent it to my friend. Her reply “GORGEOUS”. Whether she was referring to how I looked in the suit or how gorgeous courage and confidence was I have yet to ask.

What I learned is that I could feel good in a two-piece swim suit and feel grateful that my body allowed me to be out on a paddle board in the middle of the lake. Now that is gorgeous.

What would it be like if you felt gorgeous in your body?