I’m not sure how to write about this without sounding cliche or like just another diatribe of toxic positivity but here goes nothing.
I came across the perfect quote the other day, from comedian Leslie Jones. It reads :
“It’s time to start liking who you are, I’m not perfect but I’m starting to get comfortable, like a sweater you want to wear all the time”
I’m currently JUST starting to feel like that. Seems kind of sad since I’m on just on the other side of the age that rhymes with shmorty but not surprising considering the climate under which I was raised. I don’t think I ever recall hearing any women in my life praise their own bodies, beauty, qualities or accomplishments, and I grew up around A LOT of beautiful and successful women. I highly suspect most of you can say the same.
This week I heard a colleague cursing her recent corporate head shot and I thought wow, here’s a woman who is in her fifties, has overcome some pretty heavy stuff to succeed in her life, and in my opinion is quite lovely, yet she can’t accept that she is beautiful just as she is. It hurt my heart.
Then I thought back on all the times I’ve thought or said the same negative things about myself. How growing up I used to walk through my house and drop all my framed school pictures down on their faces. How if you analyzed my children’s lives by photographic evidence alone you would deduce that they were motherless.
Sometimes it’s just awkwardly not knowing how to accept a compliment on my looks. That if I say thanks I am somehow complicit in this image obsessed society. That the compliment-er will turn around and think “I was just being polite but she sure is conceited”
So in line with my one word mission statement – ENOUGH, I am working on projecting the all bodies are good bodies philosophy that I grant to others but rarely myself, onto me. I will try and catch all negative self talk before it leaves my mouth and throw it out of my head like a crinkled up piece of bad poetry that should never see the light of day. Last but not least I will not expose myself or give consideration to any medium that promotes unhealthy view of self, so long In Style and Vogue, I won’t miss you.
Then maybe I can hit full on favourite sweater phase before I’m shmorty-one.