All About That Bass

I love this recent picture of my husband and I so much. So much. This night was so perfect. It was my birthday and we got to spend the evening together just the two of us. We sat in the sun at Red Lodge Ales for hours sipping on IPA's and talking about life. It was one of those perfect moments.

What you can't tell from this picture was how just hours before we left on our date I sat and stared at my body in the mirror crying. At my feet lay piles of shirts and dresses I tried on because I wanted to feel pretty. I wanted to fit in anything but my maternity jeans and I'm tired of flowy everything to conceal the place that almost three months ago held my second child. In that mirror I saw dark eye circles, evidence of long days and sleepless nights. I saw stretch marks down my midsection like I was attacked by a tiger. I didn't see any beauty and on this day in particular I wanted to feel just that.

It still baffles me how I could stare at my reflection in the mirror and feel those things about myself. How could I hate my body? My strong powerful body that grew and gave birth to two beautiful girls. But I did. And still do. I sit on my couch lately and complain to my husband about how I love our kids, but hate my body and he always proceeds to tell me I'm beautiful, and that this shouldn't affect me. He thinks I'm being too hard on myself and that I'll get back to a body I love and I want to believe this. I do. But when I look in the mirror I see "you had a baby" and it seems permanent and unfixable. I'm just being honest. But I'm trying. I'm trying to love my new body.

Love your body no matter what. This is something I'm working on, along with my basket full of other things such as anxiety. Today I wag my finger at society because they don't talk about it. We show the celebrity who dropped the baby weight in a month because they have a nanny, a trainer, and a personal chef. Instead we should be open to the fact that, that isn't normal. You and I. We are normal. Our bodies just did an incredibly hard and amazing thing and we shouldn't feel bad if we have to wear maternity jeans post partum because they fit better than our old jeans. We should be talking about accepting our post partum bodies because they are beautiful, no matter what size.

If you are anything like me you ride this roller coaster daily. The one that includes hating my body for what it looks like, to loving what it created. But then I think about my daughters and what I may be projecting on them. They don't see it, you know? They don't see the bags under my eyes, or my current squishy belly. They see their mother. They look beyond the things that I have deemed imperfect about myself. And the mother I want to be wants my daughters to love their bodies for I am their first teacher. So for them, and for myself I vow to love me, and my postpartum body. It is after all the thing that gave me the greatest gift of all, them.