On the Weightwatches website there are before and after photographs. Slimmer of the year. We look at the after shot and we see women who are beautiful. We view 'before' and we are meant to recoil. I find myself teary. This beautiful woman who would have been overlooked in a crowded room. This woman who now, after dieting will be glanced at and longed for and desired.
I wanted to be desired. A touch without the benefit of desire saddened me.
I also wanted to be published.
But ultimately, really at the end of it all the real point of it is the writing and the real point of my body is that it gives me pleasure. I have neglected myself of late. I have not touched myself or desired myself for a week and my body has begun to shed it's unsightly kilos in this mourning period. I will be desired, eventually at the end of it all, and then, as with the publication I will finally realise that this is not the point at all. My body should be like the writing, something done in private, something tended to in the dark with my little desk lamp. Something that comes from me and that is for me. Your critique is unwanted and unnecessary. One day when I am desired I will probably not value your review anyway.
2 comments:
Critique may not be wanted or appreciated but there is a urge for me to respond. This lack of self love/self appreciation is something that a lot of woman share with you, including myself. This warped perception of what "I think others think, is beautiful" has been heavily clouding my thoughts for as long as I can remember.
This destructive mentality was taking shape when my body was at its prime, when I was trim, taut & terrific. Back before the pregnancy years, before the laugh lines & sunspots appeared on my fair skin.
It was my twisted thinking that fed this belief & gave it life. It was me who created this insecure, overweight & self defeatist type woman.
It saddens me when I think of what I have lost, the time I have wasted, the opportunities I let pass by.
The last 10 years have been the most trying, scary years of my life thus far. But of this dark, uncertain & rocky time I have learned so much.
Life took me unarmed & vulnerable through a tunnel of pure darkness & uncertainty. I never expected, wanted or was ready for what life had thrown me but I had to deal with it because he needed me. Somehow, I don't know how, I came out of this tunnel with a clearer head & a better way of thinking. I do catch myself at times allowing the old mentality back in but am quick to kick it's destructive ass back into oblivion. There is no way it's gonna suck the next 40 years of my life.
You are a beautiful, talented, passionate woman. You've just got to believe it!
I really, really love this post Krissy. I relate to both things - wanting it to be about the writing, not the publishing (oh, it's hard), and wanting it to be about the body's uses and pleasures and the way it works - not about the exterior and the societal expectations. I've been a size 16, I've starved myself to a size 6. I'm trying to be comfortable and happy somewhere in between...
Post a Comment