Can/Make/Do/Think

theangrytherapist:

rhymeswithjulie:

It is so fucking hard to be a woman.

 I had a conversation the other day about body image, and how I could make the image of myself in my head a better one. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I am ugly. And I am not fishing for anyone to say ‘No, you’re so pretty!’ This isn’t about that, it is about what it is like to be a woman. In fact, don’t send me some cheer up note or email. That isn’t what this is about. This isn’t about me. This is about us. Because I know someone will read this and know exactly what I am talking about and this is about her, too.

 I had this conversation over cocoa. I had refused one the day before, feeling guilty about calories. This night I was drinking the cocoa, but confessing I would be upset with myself about it later.  The my cocoa drinking partner asked why I would feel bad. I pointed out that while I might enjoy this cocoa now, it would never fail that before the night was over or even the next day, I would see a beautiful woman and cringe over the 100 sugary calories I tacked onto my evening.

An ad for a dress, a girl on the street, a photo in the news, on my blog, a beer commercial, a cosmetic commercial, on Facebook, on the side of a bus, in a magazine, across the coffee shop, in a store, a jeans commercial, on a billboard, in a music video, on tumblr, around, every where you look.

The pressure to be beautiful is so massive I think it is a miracle that any woman can feel good about herself at all. And I am sure half if not more of the women I look at and think ‘God, she’s pretty. I wish I looked like that’ are constantly looking at other women and thinking the same thing.

And it isn’t just a battle of being thin. While that is a major factor, that isn’t it entirely and it would be dismissive to say that it was.  The battle to be feminine. To have full breasts and a curvy bum, a coke bottle figure or tiny thin thighs, dainty manicured feet and pretty hands with naturally occurring french tips. Flawless skin with no marks or dry spots, shiny hair that flows and bounces and sits the way it would in a magazine. To be flawless.

I look at these women and I realize that when I am naked in front of a mirror I don’t even resemble them. I don’t look like the pretty models, the curvy girls with Betty Boop figures, the busty actresses or the petite girls guys seem to chase. I have the flat chest of a thin woman but the hips of a curvy girl. I guess my belly is somewhere in between, not too big but certainly not tight or flat. I am tall but not model tall, I have wide shoulders and wide hips and an unremarkable shape. I have bumpy skin, spots, zits, freckles in some spots not in others. I have birthmarks and bruises and scars on my knees. My skin tone is uneven, not just on my face, isn’t dark or light or exotic or anything. It is plain and imperfect. I have a chipped canine tooth, mousey brown hair that lies flat without tons of coaxing and time and products.  I wax, I pluck, I jog, I sweat, I get facials, I try every new product I know I can waste my money on in the hopes that maybe this will make me feel better.

If I drink the cocoa I will waste moments of my life, staring at the inside of my thighs and the extra inch in the middle and the newest zit sugar probably brought out. I will agonize and sometimes I will break down and cry. And I will know that this is wretched and stupid and that there is nothing wrong with me. And I will know this is media bull shit and unfair social standards getting into my head. I will watch something about feminist power. I will pat myself on the back.  I will talk myself up about how pretty I am and even better I am a good girl and a strong girl and I don’t need anyone to tell me otherwise. Then I will go out my door, march myself down the street with my head high, order a slice of pizza and enjoy it like manna from heaven.

And half way through, I will notice the billboard across the street with the girl in the skinny jeans, and I will put the slice down half eaten.

And it will start again.

I will know what is happening.

And that won’t make it any easier.

I know many every women can relate to this.  Thank you for your transparency, Rhymes.

- Angry

While I don’t struggle with the same exact issues that the original writer does, I do struggle with feeling like an ugly duckling, one who never feels quite comfortable inhabiting her skin. I hang out with people who always appear more put-together, more “classic”, more…something than me. And I know that I have a specific “look”, and I try to work within it, but I always feel a little bit off-center. A little less than everyone else.

And that’s effing hard.

And it’s not about being thin, it’s not about being pretty or not pretty, for me. I just wish I felt comfortable consistently. I talk a great game about how awesome I think my body is, how amazing and strong and powerful a machine I inhabit, and I truly believe that. 100%. But then there’s the rest of me - the clothing, the hair, the feeling that even when I try to look the part, sometimes I just don’t look quite right. The other UWS nannies that always look more pulled together and more… something. The women I intern with, who are all very different in their styles, but all seem to look and act like they are comfortable in who they are and how they appear the majority of the time.

That’s what I want. The comfort in the external that I feel in the internal.