I have this mental image of myself.
When I’m not actively loathing myself, it tends to be a fairly complimentary mental image. Sweet, patient Mommy; great, healthy cook; devoted & encouraging wife; still sexy in a bikini, after all these years…
And then there are moments of truth.
When I realize it’s the fourth time this week my kids have had pb&j for lunch, and no, the carrots don’t make up for it, cause they’ve swum thru an entire bottle of ranch in the same week. And there’s the moment I actually say to my fifth-grader, over her math lesson, “why does this not make sense to you?? this is kindergarten stuff!” And yes, I actually said it with that sarcastic, impatient tone you imagined. Saying a thousand ‘I’m sorry’s’ does not begin to erase the tears of surprise and frustration that trickled down her face.
Moments like that, I come face-to-face with the woman I really am. And it's not a pretty picture.
So Kevin & I had this 18th anniversary getaway. Found an amazing deal for $69 a night at the Vail Cascade Resort & Spa. Sounds posh, right? Well, it was! We even went out to eat twice, via restaurant.com gift certificates I'd paid $2.50 for. Livin' high, on a bargain budget - 'cause I'm seriously the bargain diva, second only to my friend Amanda, & my sister Tami!
Anyway - the point is, we had four days & three nights to relax, talk, escape, sleep in, without having to change a single diaper or drive anyone to youth group or feel guilty about what a crappy math teacher I am. Since the only swimsuit I'd purchased in the last 10 years was designed to accommodate pregnancy or nursing, it was time to get a 'for-his-eyes-only' bikini. In a divine miracle that some of you may have experienced as well - I actually found a super-cute bikini that fit both ends, seemed to look sexy, without spilling beyond the seams. And cost less than $25. (Walmart, okay? I told you I'm a bargain-girl)
But then -
a moment of truth:
Day four of our little getaway, and we're checking out all the fun pictures of our adventures. There's the shots of us hiking, and at the restaurant, in the hotel lobby...oh...and who's that middle-aged woman in the teenybopper bikini???
Oh. No.
Please let that not be me. Am I really that wrinkly? And flabby? Did I really make that ridiculous, trying-to-be-sultry face, there...and there...and there?
So, I know - grace and all that, right? Seven pregnancies, the exercise & weight-gain roller-coaster, nursing for something like ten thousand months...so what's a little chub, a stretch mark or two?
And there sits Kevin by the hottub, not a whole lot different than the day we met, totally unselfconscious, because what average husband has any pressure to be sexy anyway?
Ugh.
Yeah, it's petty and petulant and ridonkulous.
But it still makes me cry. Hard.
Cause I'm not gettin' any younger, and I just don't know if I'm gonna lose these last 10 'baby pounds' this time, and I'll never be the sexy young thing I used to be for my husband, and no amount of self-tanner can hide the stretch marks, and can't we move to some tribal village that doesn't culturally objectify women?
Sigh.
It's hard to be a woman.
I'm just sayin'...