Aging Un-gracefully

I was never "the pretty one."  When I was growing up, I had the nice singing voice, the book smarts, and "great feet."  My first husband almost never looked at me as if he was appreciating what he saw.  I was scrawny, curveless, lanky, and (like most little girls I've learned) didn't feel pretty.

Then, I got divorced and found me in my mid-twenties. Gosh, I loved me!  My body wasn't perfect, but whose is?!  Anyone?... Yeah, that's what I thought. I have a great sense of humor. I love people -- helping them, listening to them, getting to know them.

A few years back, I broke my coccyx.  That was only the beginning.  I graduated from college and started working desk jobs.  Let's face it.  I've got curves now. My weight hovers around the same as the ninth month of my third and fourth pregnancies. I jog. I yoga. I dance. I walk. I play. But, I also eat what I want when I want. I had to curb the eating a little because that metabolism that burned so hot for three decades recently tanked.  I actually feel full for a while after eating.  This is brand new to me, so I'm learning to adjust.

I'll be 38 years old later this year, I've given birth to six human beings, my hair is beginning to show white, and those awesome dark, course hairs I used to loathe tweezing from my mom's chin are now popping up on mine. I'm not blind people.  I can see the roundness on my arms, my belly, my chin, and my thighs.  I know I'm aging. But, I think I've earned every single solitary wrinkle.  So, why not just let me LOVE ME instead of taking every opportunity to point out the parts of me that you believe are flawed?

Do you know what it's like to have people shocked by the way you look because of the extra 25 pounds you're carrying? It's awful. It makes me feel self conscious. I'm beginning to not want to take pictures (or pull apart the ones I am in) and not get dressed in the morning to go out in to the world.  Why do people do that?!  WE'RE ALL FLAWED DAMN IT.

And, p.s., when I was that scrawny little twig girl in junior high AND high school, I used to look at Greco-Roman art and LONG TO BE lusciously curvaceous like their women are portrayed. Muscular and strong, but also completely soft. 

This week, I walked up to the building I work in now (mirrored glass) and saw that long ago desired figure.  And I thought to myself, I love me.  I'm okay with me.  I've earned this body. Today, someone said something about the recent roundness of my face as if it were a derogatory characteristic and now I'm sitting in my bedroom crying and writing this to the empty cyber world where no one will read it and no one will change, but I will be able to say it "out loud."  I LOVE ME. I am growing OLD.  I will get wrinkly.  Stuff will sag.  My hair will be white.  And I plan to LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE, and PLAY all the way through to the end.  I've EARNED this body. I might even start wearing a toga. So, keep your damn derogatory insecurities and commentary to yourself.
 

Guest Poet: Jason VanDaam

A big shout out to my poet buddy and Ping Pong Poetry partner, Jason VanDaam.  You can find some of his published works, such as "It Seems I Have Heart Trouble" and "Plato's Pawn Shop" in the WSU interdisciplinary journal Metaphor or you can follow him on twitter @wordalchemist1. If you ever get the chance, Jason's distinctive voice is best heard live at a local Poetry Slam. He is currently working on a compilation of his best hits.  Watch for it!

Adventures in Feminine Hygiene

A recent Russian Tampax commercial demonstrates their "leak proof" technology by having the other girl eaten by a shark. If you're a girl, you know there are a lot of choices when it comes to making sure you're covered when facing the "sharks" of this world who will eat you alive over embarrassing leaks.  What you might not consider is your very own busy brain.

I know I didn't...

Once upon a time, I brought some reading, a chair, some water, and the camera.  All these things made it quite clear that I had no plans of getting in the lake to swim with my children.  It's one of my very most favorite things in life, but there I was on a spontaneous trip to our favorite swimming spot wearing a pad and not a tampon.  I was not going in. 

Until hubby decided he wasn't going in either.  What?! We have two small, non-swimmer children wearing floaties out there.  Come on.  I was so concerned about their safety, I completely forgot about my little "situation" and dove in.  The good news?  Pad technology has seriously come a long way in the past few decades -- no falling apart, bloated, floating pieces. The bad news?  Realizing I didn't have any replacement equipment in my purse and there was no way I was going to sit in the car wearing this thing.

What could I do?  Well, there's always the Business section of The New York Times...

Do You Know My Voice?

Every author has a voice of their own.  Without any audible sound, one can come to recognize a favorite author or other individual authors based on their distinctive imprint on the way they put words together.  One of my poet friends and I like to challenge each other with games of Poetry Ping Pong.  What follows is the context of a recent game (played over texts) without any edits -- completely raw (other than line spacing I am adding here).  Do you know which stanzas are mine?  Can you guess the identity of the other poet?

Sinners either run
or they sit, stuck in the mire
loving the cool earth smell,
birth smell with less blood
and sweat.  Running makes
a body tired.

Eventually...

each of these choices reflects
the same color, earth-toned
and salted sour aftertaste as it is just pain
leaving the body replaced
with hope.  This palate sweet dew,
heavy with sacred time. 

St. Peter vacations here during Catholic holidays.

Sometimes, when the heat of hell
overlaps the space in the year
for salvation, as the choirs of heaven
take a break and watch reality TV
Harlem shaking a Gungham-style Macarena,
it is the more in everything
that ruined it for the rest of us
have enoughs.  American birthing pain
during a scheduled patriotic C-section
during the delivery of a stillborn
child named freedom.  R.I.P.

It is the whistle warning song before a firework bursts,
before the baby's mouth opens wide to wail against the world,
before the heart break happens and our feet do their own choosing
Payless size nines with a man-made upper.

Man is always on top,

even when he's on the bottom,
in the pit, bottomless, running again,
carrying sin like a flag with thirteen stripes
of red.

Castor oil covered, foul-tongued, ostrich-feathered
girls fill themselves, leaving me
empty, tattered and torn, like a national flag
of a country that no longer exists as it was
full of generous peoples.  This is archaic,
unrealistic and silly.  The world now demands
selfish self centered plastic media driven

images that have forced a national forgetting

of a simple hug.  Revelry sounds shrill,
automated.  Leaving the listener lonely,
satisfied in the fact that choices are limited
for peaceful, satisfying breath. So, I dance
like everyone is watching secretly folding
the flag with pomp as it will wave once again
when we remember we are we

or even...

just part of something greater.