Perspective

I realized the other day that I might have gotten over myself.  And it makes me feel like an adult.

Years ago, I used to work in Customer Service.  A few of the other girls and I were chatting one day, and decided that we should be having Girls' Nights Out.  We were all in committed relationships, and had gotten into the homebody rut, staying home cozy-couching it with our sweeties when normal people our age were out clubbing it up.  Not that we wanted to go trawling for new men, mind you, but, y'know, go out and live a little now and again.  I was the one of the group that was nervous when one of the girls mentioned going dancing.  I am not, by nature, a graceful person at all.  And I used to be very self-conscious, always convinced that people were looking at me, snickering behind their hands at the goofy girl dancing like a seizure victim.  Marge, one of the older ladies in the department, overheard me saying this and said, "What makes you think everyone's going to be looking at you?  No offense, sweetie, but you're never going to have a good time if that's all you think about."  Of course, she was right.  I went out, had a few drinks, danced a bunch, and had an awesome time.  

I've always had issues with my body.  I developed early, so I was constantly feeling uncomfortable with myself in junior high and high school (who wasn't?)  When I hit puberty, I gained brand-new ginormous boobies, but I also lost the metabolism I had as a younger kid, but not my appetite - a dangerous combination in a moody preteen girl.  I gained a lot of weight fast, and while I don't think I was ever horribly overweight, it was enough for me (and some of my elderly, less tactful family members) to notice.  And obsess over.  Thankfully, I never developed an eating disorder, but I did spend an inordinate amount of time in my youth fixating on the size of my thighs, sucking in my stomach, eating nothing but pretzels and diet Sprite... all that stuff you do when you are convinced that people are staring at you,  appalled at your disgusting enormity.

After kids, you'd think I had even more problems with my body image, right?  But no.  Having kids made something start to change in me.  I'm far from physically perfect, though my husbeast seems to appreciate what it is that I've got.  I guess saggy breasts and a stretched-out belly are a turn-on for him.  To each his own, I suppose.  But hey - my body churned out two of (what I think) are two of the most adorable, fabulous citizens of the planet who bring my life endless joy.  The sheer fact that I was able to nurture two actual human beings into life is kind of amazing.  Not in that, "Oh, I'm a MOTHER.  I am oh so speshul because I have babies and a purpose in life now," kind of way.  Just that... I made two people.  Two individual human beings.  It's kinda wild, that we as adults have our flaws, and our hangups, and our issues, and we forget that as humans we have the potential to make other humans.  And yes, most every other life form on the planet can do this, but we get to marvel at it.  It got me thinking.

I'm not just a mommy machine.  I have other stuff going on, too.  I cook, I knit, I garden, I drive like a maniac.  I keep up this shitty blog.  I learn things, I grow.  There's so much inside each of us that is incredible, and we really ought not take it for granted.  We are all pretty cool people, and really, the packaging?  As long as it keeps everything inside, and it's healthy and does what it's supposed to do, we should really be more proud of ourselves than most of us are.  Take care of it, nurture it, keep it tidy, sure.  But worry about whether we look like the magazine people look, why do we do that?  Do we all really have to be cookie-cutter people who all look like everyone else looks? 

Two weeks ago, I went to the beach with my husbeast and kids.  It's June in Ocean City, which is always a month where the beaches and boardwalks and malls and streets are filled with drunk graduating high school seniors celebrating Beach Week.  Depending on when you graduate, you get a bunch of your friends and head down to the beach to play asshole and three-man, and smoke weed and meet other hormonally- and substance-influenced other young people for a week of debauchery and hopefully not getting arrested.  As I sat in our pop-up beach cabana, Evie played in the sand.  Fia was rolling around next to me while I tried to put sunscreen on her, and Husbeast was arranging the towels and cooler and beach toys and all the whatnot we'd brought with us.  A group of high school girls showed up and plunked their stuff down about twenty feet in front of us, setting up their chairs and umbrellas and radio and all their stuff for a day of sunning.  Such a sight would have ordinarily sent me into a tizzy of self-consciousness, although I am fully aware that I have almost 20 years' worth of adventures on me that these little ladies have yet to experience, 20 years that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I would have probably put on my cover-up, sucked in my tummy, and internally agonized over whether my husband was leering at them, wishing I was a little bit taller, a lot trimmer, and perhaps more tan. 

I was truly amazed to discover that I really didn't care what those girls looked like!  Or what they were doing!  Or even that they were there!  That was a feeling I never had before (not while I was sober, anyway)!  I was happy, where I was, in what I was doing, and I really honestly didn't care one bit about who might or might not be looking.  I didn't care whether anyone even noticed us on the beach there.  We were in our own little bubble of fun, sandy pants, and sunshine.  When I said something to husbeast about this, his response?  "Good.  It's about damn time."
It is about damn time.