I have an essay published in Crow’s Feet on Medium, where I write about my battle with my aging skin. No lotion, no potion can turn back time, it seems. You can read it here: https://medium.com/crows-feet/why-i-want-to-lose-my-battle-against-my-aging-skin-867f3a2ac070?source=friends_link&sk=65d56350a699d02cea9970c90e8db885
Soon after this post goes live, I’ll update my avatar … again.
Here is a powerful essay by an extraordinary woman. For any woman who lives with a scarred body, this essay is a must-read.
I’ve been revisiting my issues around my own scars, what they mean to me, what they say about me, how can I see them as beautiful since I have no choice but to live with them because they will never fade away. After reading Dana’s essay, I think I can now embrace them.
The first question on the intake questionnaire was, “Why have you decided to have boudoir portraits taken now?” My first thought was, Why has it taken me so long? After everything my body has been through, it is long overdue. I’m not getting any younger, after all. I’ve already begun to list the organs I have left that I am able to live without.
During my senior year in high school, I performed in a play of one-act monologues: Talking With, by Jane Martin. My monologue was called “Marks”. A woman, unmarked by life, is cut by a suitor in a parking lot. Surprisingly, her scar would bring confidence. So she began to wear her life upon her skin, tattoos for those who touched her. Little did I comprehend the prophetic nature of those words as I spoke them.
I want to celebrate the body I have today, battered and…
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I often claim that I have no regrets, that life happens and it all works out in the end. Like, if I hadn’t had that accident that nearly amputated my leg, I wouldn’t have received training for a new job and I wouldn’t have gotten a new job at the firm where I eventually met my future husband. Except I don’t really mean that. I do have regrets. Lots of them. And for that incident in particular (because the accident was in fact my fault), I always think that we would have met up some other way, if it were truly our destiny to be together. I’m a romantic but not so much of a masochist that I think I should have had to injure myself to meet the man of my dreams.
I don’t wallow in my regrets (at least not often), but I try to learn from them. Like, when I gained a chunk of weight because (in part) we had moved from an urban area where my feet were my primary mode of transport to the suburbs where the Almighty Automobile rules the streets. I didn’t make the necessary effort to keep my weight in check so while adjusting (badly) to the odd concept that I had to make time to walk, my clothes got tighter and tighter.
That weight gain was regrettable because there came a time when I needed very much to feel sexy and attractive, and I was anything but. Just roll me in flour …
Adding insult to fattiness, I’ve had to double-down with exercising and dieting. I’ve got my waist back along with a more presentable butt, but I still have a long way to go to get back to my pre-suburbs weight (if ever). At least I don’t feel as self-conscious in downward facing dog as I used to.
Lesson learned is that when the weight comes off, it must stay off. Think black lacy thongs. Not an attractive thought where you’re 20+ pounds overweight. So the weight is being shed slowly but surely, and one at a time the thongs are moving from the bottom of my underwear drawer to the top.
Marie at 1 Write Way 