Happy Birthday to Me, in My Birthday Suit (NSFW)
by Zoeyjane
The last year has been trying, to say the least.
The ones before it were, too.
That body, it’s had so much shame wrapped up in its bones and fat and muscles, and I’m done. I don’t want to stand in front of a mirror anymore and see wrongs. Even if half of society would call it slammin’ and the other half, unhealthy. Even if it’s a ‘fat day’ or I ate a bunch of salty food the night before. Even if, one day, I’ve gained the magical amount of pounds that my doctors would like to see me gain. Even if I ever have another baby, who doesn’t take to breastfeeding and I don’t end up relapsing in my eating disorder as a reaction to fucking unbearable PPD, and the weight doesn’t drop off like it did with Zoë.
This is just me. Naked and vulnerable and accepting that some of you will judge me for a multitude of reasons for putting this photo up, before you even start to pinpoint what’s wrong with its contents.
As much as you might think I put it all out there, I don’t. I hide behind things that you don’t even realize are barriers. I’ve done it forever and it’s changed – the game of hiding – but it’s always been there.
My jeans are baggy because if I were to wear the size that fits you’d see me, skinny and bony and soft and stretch-marked. My shirts conceal my breasts because I don’t want you to judge me for having plastic surgery. For a lot of the latter half of my 20s, I refrained from wearing make-up because I didn’t want to be noticed. Because there seemed something wrong with wanting to be pretty. Because I didn’t want you or me or them to think I held any vanity.
Because I’ve been told how wrong my body was. Because I starved it for so long into this. Because stretch marks and cellulite are bad. Because saline implants are one of the major reasons women feel like shit about themselves. Because I am a mother and that, in some way, comes with it a requirement for subtlety, muffin-top, asexuality and contentment with my life – as mother, not so much as a woman.
Because a size 0 is wrong. It’s everything that’s wrong with society, almost. It’s increasing the divide between women’s self-esteem and what they’re left with. Self-shaming, fat-labelling, sizeism. It works the other way around, too, you know?
And it’s occurred to me, as a mother, that self-acceptance isn’t all wrapped up in accept yourself if you don’t meet an ideal. It’s also accept that you do meet an ideal, even if some of your peers don’t. Don’t hide the body you have just because you’re aware that it’s supporting fashion’s brain-washing. Don’t layer yourself, so that no one who doesn’t get you naked really knows what you look like. Don’t, for any reason, think that you need to be sad about your body type – even if you’re a size 0.
Don’t think that 0 means empty and nothingness.
What would I do, if 15 years from now, Zoë, all grown up, was a 34-24-34, under-weight, maybe, but still herself? Would I tell her she needed to gain weight or eat a cheeseburger or otherwise change herself, to make me and the people around her happy? Nope. Not a fucking chance. Zoë has one role in life: to do what she needs to, to get what she wants out of it, including happiness. I have two, as her mother: to help her find and walk that course, and to not stand in her way.
Me standing in front of the mirror, frowning, is blocking her way. Me being unhappy because I don’t feel good enough, because in a lingerie ad, I would be good enough but I’m a mother and I shouldn’t think like that, is blocking her way. Me hiding my body in clothes and my face with my hair and behind a comedienne exterior, when I’m not entirely that person? Is blocking her way. Me consistently screwing up the difference between pride and conceit, and so assuming that I should exhibit neither, is blocking her way. Me defining my Self as what my appearance denotes is blocking her way.
I’m her major role model, and I’m doing it wrong.
I’ve been doing it wrong for me, too.
So, today’s my 30th birthday – the beginning of a decade I’ve heard brings self-acceptance, wisdom and peace. I’ve been looking forward to this for about two years, honestly. For some sort of an allowance I could give myself to just step away from the concealing and manipulations of self, to stop trying to be somebody else. To stop trying to accept that I should have someone else’s body, mind, career, family or home.
To just be.
Free of what-if and I-fucked-that-up and what-will-they-think. Free of bindings that speak inside my head of the person I’m supposed to be: the maternal figure, when I’m not a typical one; the easy-personality, when I’m anything but; the literary genius, when I know that I will likely never see myself as some one who does more that narrates. For those whens to be enough.
So, today, on my 30th birthday, I’m priming myself for acceptance and the notion that I’m good enough as I am. I’m going to enjoy this day and I’m going to allow my best friend to buy me a present, even if it makes me feel spotlighted. I’m going to enjoy the rest of my days and allow myself to be spotlighted, period.
Yesterday, she said to me in a teasing tone that she’d told her husband that I don’t like stuff – in response to his suggestion for a birthday present for me – and I came back with a retort about not liking stuff and fun.
I don’t. Because both of those things typically requires me to be looked at, judged as happy or rich or lucky or skilled or whatever. Because I might fall on my ass (like I did on Wednesday, ice skating), because I might make a funny face in effort or excitement, because I might fail and not measure up to whatever I think the bar is set at.
I don’t try new things, or things I can’t immediately excel at, or things that I might not ace eventually because I’m so very uncomfortable with the idea of not being enough.
Today marks the start of something big. It’s the beginning of my 30th year and my third decade and the first time that I’ve really said to myself ‘fuck it, let’s just go balls out and experience. Even if you fall on your ass while making a funny face and still end up failing’.
Tomorrow, I start figuring out what that really means. I’m so thankful to have made it this far, to have the chance.
