Because Who Is Perfect?

The Dove real beauty campaign. Total beauty. Run way models. Magazines and catalogs. Fashion ads. Photoshop. And the media's more recent spearing of the ideals that the fashion industry is shoving down our throats.

Everywhere women look they see images of what they're "supposed" to look like. And how to get rid of wrinkles, defeat cellulite, lose weight, wear the right make up, wear the right clothes. You're not thin enough. You're not young enough. It's no wonder that eating disorders are on the rise and Americans spend 50 BILLION dollars on diet crap and self-help everythings.

It's shocking to realize that because of Barbie, all of the oh-so-attractive kids on all the Disney shows, and the fashion industry going after young girls (thongs for 7 year olds, anybody?? courtesy of Ambercrombie) that girls as young as first grade are worried about gaining weight. By 6th grade, these same girls are on a diet. I don't know about you, but NOT in my house would I ever allow that to happen. I have dedicated my life to raising my kids and doing whatever it took to give them the tools they need as they grow up, and that means telling my girls over and over and over that they are beautiful, no make up or designer clothes required, just they way they are.

I read a lot of articles shaming the fashion industry, the make up companies, and the clothes manufacturers for what they present to women. Nobody actually looks like that....



The models don't even look like that. And yes, we've seen some corporations fight back. The Dove Real Beauty campaign has done a lot to fight back against unreachable ideals for women. The Fourth Trimester Project is another great campaign. And most recently I fell in love with the Pro Infirmis project.  Because women don't look like this....

Nobody does. It's not possible. But because of these unrealistic images that girls are assaulted with on a  daily basis, the incidence of eating disorders has doubled in the US in the last 30 years. Girls as young as 7 are developing distorted body image ideals and eating disorders. It's estimated that 4-5% of Americans will develop an eating disorder and 4 in every 1,000 die from it. These girls are literally starving themselves to death trying to be thin enough, pretty enough. 

But there are people fighting back. News outlets, corporations, and individual women.



Love yourself. Accept your own natural beauty. There's no way you'd ever allow someone else to talk to you the way you talk to yourself! I know this from personal experience. Why is it that I can see a picture of my friend, my daughter, my mother, my sisters and all I see are their beautiful eyes? Or how smart, funny, strong, or kind they are. But when I see a picture of myself, all I see is a frozen mirror that I can pick apart. Those laugh lines around my eyes? Oh-em-gee I look old. Those scars? I don't see the story, just the ugly line.

And I should. I should see that those lines around my eyes mean I have laughed. I should see that that scar above my lip is part of my story. And that 6 inch scar on my left hip that I'm always covering up? That's my miracle. Because of that surgery I can still walk. I'm going to choose to be grateful for it instead of thinking it's an ugly thing that needs to be covered up.

I took part in the #barefacedbeauty bit because I think it's important for my friends, my daughters, my sisters to see someone baring themselves and being vulnerable to see beyond the make up we hide behind so that they can see their own beauty. I uploaded a picture of myself on social media with no make up on, not even lip gloss, and I hope to inspire the women in my life to do the same.

No make up, freshly washed face.

After doing my hair and make up for the day.

Ladies, LOVE yourself. I see my best friends and all I see are amazing, strong women. Those scars on her belly? She survived cancer and I think they're beautiful. Those stretch marks? She had healthy twin boys. Those are her stripes and she earned them! I see pictures of my daughters and they are amazing. Photos of my sisters and my friends mean that they have laughed, cried, loved, been loved, and done a hell of a lot more than just survive.

And who gets to tell you you're not perfect anyway??

/flail

This has been a year of change. A LOT of change. I swear I blinked and suddenly I've moved 3 times, and two of my kids grew up and ran off. Grey hair has appeared, as well as a few lines around my eyes that I don't remember having. Hubs has retired from the Navy, and everything feels different.

I think we pick a spot in our lives, for some of us it may be in high school, college, or maybe somewhere in our twenties, that we see ourselves in. There's a moment in time that we see every time we look in the mirror. From that moment on, that's who we see in the mirror. It may be tied to a life changing event, a period in time when one might think they've found themselves, or maybe the moment we found ourselves and happiness.

For me I think it bounces between when I was in my early twenties and identified as a dancer (in between being a wife or a mom), but really, I see me as thirty-something. I really found myself in my thirties. It wasn't the easiest decade I've ever survived, and it all happened after the defining moment in my life that made my before and after, but I found myself as a woman, more than just being a wife, mother, daughter, or friend.

Now that I've recently had a birthday and *grumble...mutter* am no longer in my thirt*mumbles*, two of my kids are grown and moved out. One of which is currently on the other side of the planet due to where he's stationed on active duty. Hubs is retired so we're exploring a different existence after being active duty. I feel like so much of my cheese has been moved. Family seems different, and it sort of is because hubs and I have both lost family members in the past few years. Friends seem different because we're no longer inside of the military family. Kids are grown, but I feel like if I think hard enough I should be juggling riding lessons and boy scouts.

I sort of feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and I don't know if I should try to climb back up, or accept that this is my new reality and start getting used to it. (And yes, I sort of know that this is my new reality....but it's weird)

What about you? Have you had major changes in recent memory? Was it hard to adjust? Can you throw me down a rope?

Hell In High Heels

In 30 days my husband will have his Retirement Ceremony celebrating his 24 years of service and "piping him ashore". Of those 24 years, I have been a part of more than 15 of them. I have survived deployments, deaths, tax audits, lightning actually hitting my house, losing his dad, losing my dad, losing a child, almost losing my life because of pregnancy complications, a very high risk pregnancy, having my husband on another continent when 9/11 happened, moving ...wait lemme think....8? times in 15 years, mandatory fun command events, and all of the general life wtfwasthat that typically happens in your 20's and 30's.

I've taken kids to the ER for staples in their head (trampoline accident), stitches in their forehead (don't run through hardwood floors on wet feet), a broken collar bone (don't run up a cement wall right next to a steel pole), bronchitis, infections, and other assorted kid ickies. I've been in the ER more times than I can count. I've had 5 surgeries, including a friggin hip replacement and recovered from almost all of them without my husband there because he had to go save some other part of the planet.

Two of my kids have graduated and moved out on their own, one off to begin his own Navy career . I've lost friends and made friends. My kids have lost friends and made lifelong friends. They've had to put up with more than I ever wanted them to, but they've also learned they're stronger than they thought they were.

We have survived an entire Navy career, and I did a great deal of it in heels.

Navy balls, Khaki balls, Birthday balls, Dining outs, Formal events, Semi-formal events, Graduations, you name it and it requires cute shoes.

Now I'm down to the final hurdle. The final event. I did not want to turn retirement into a production, but hubs wanted to "pass the watch" down to our son as he begins his career and my husband ends his. So we're having a retirement ceremony and are up to our eyeballs in family planning trips to be here for it and trying to get my son out of A school for 2 days to be here. The whole things has morphed into a monster...

...kind of like my MIL. And if you tell her I said that, I'll deny it.

We're down to the final thing and I'm trying to survive it.

Send Xanax. And maybe some cute shoes.

Love & Other Drugs

Once in a while in popular culture we come across something that resonates within us. It can be a song, a movie, or some kind of reference online. Especially in this digital, everything-is-immediately-available age. The most recent experience I've had with this is watching the movie Love and Other Drugs. It's a good movie and I highly recommend it even if you're not on the chronic illness carousel, but especially if you are.

 

It's a story about a 26 year old with early onset Parkinson's. But it wasn't so much that the story involved a particular illness as it was just about *every* chronic illness, most of which are almost invisible. It's about living inside a body that is failing you and refusing to cooperate with anything you want on a daily basis.

The one scene in the movie that truly spoke to me and inspired this blog was about 3/4 of the way through the movie. Jake's character (Jaime) comes over to his girlfriend's apartment after a day at work. Anne's character (Maggie) has had a really long, crappy day dealing with doctors and trying to get to the pharmacy before it closes to get her meds...basically, she spends forever at the doc's and misses the pharmacy and has to wait until tomorrow to get her meds which means that she's without any meds until she can get to the pharmacy. A story that all of us that deal with way too many doctors and pharmacies and medications know all too well.

So, she's got a bottle of vodka trying to numb a little of the pain and frustration of it all. And after such a crappy day, she's prickly and short tempered and pissed off at her hands because they won't work right, and ....basically the whole damn lot of it all.

I don't have Parkinson's but I do know what it's like to live in a body that is betraying you.  I do know what it's like to drop things and knock them over all the time.

So Jaime and Maggie start arguing and she tells him to him the hell out. As he's leaving, she tries to pick up her glass and ends up knocking it off the table. Just as Jaime steps out the door, he hears this howl of grief and frustration. He steps back in the door and finds her crumbled on the floor, sobbing. He gathers her up and holds her. This is supposed to be the point in the movie that we understand that he's seeing how hard it is to love someone with a chronic illness and in the face of all that, he still chooses her because he loves her.

Part of the story deals with how Maggie doesn't let anyone too close because she doesn't trust anyone to accept her illness and support her through it. It's incredibly difficult to be with someone that is chronically ill. The fact that something like 80% of spouses leave their significant other in the face of cancer, Lupus, Fibro, or a whole list of chronic illness speaks to how hard it really is. And even in the 20% or so of those that don't pack their bags and run off to Aruba with a hot blond, not all of them are really there. (Okay I'm speculating...a little ... about the blond...and Aruba, but you get the idea...they look at what the future holds for  their chronically ill S.O. and bail.)

That moment...the resonating howl of anguish, grief, and frustration...spoke to me. The cry of overwhelming heartbreak as she collapses to the floor in sobs. We've all been there. Chronically ill or not, something, sometime in your life has left you feeling disheartened and overwhelmed.

She tries to push him away because the thought of trusting someone to catch her as she struggles is terrifying.

 

That's one of the lesser known things about being diagnosed and eventually learning how to live with an illness. The fear that no one will be there with you, that being sick makes you feel harder to love. We've all lost people once we became sick...friends, family, loved ones, and yes...sometimes spouses.

That was the part of the movie that resonated in me. I've covered a lot of aspects of living with an illness but the fear and rejection is never truly addressed enough, in my opinion.

If you love someone that is chronically ill, try to understand that they are still in there. The same person you knew a decade ago is still trapped in that betraying body.
If you are chronically ill, I hope you'll share this blog, or better yet, that movie with your S.O.

I think the most important thing we can do is try to understand each other. 

Life with Fibro...day five thousand and something

It's not very often that I stop and feel sorry for myself. I'm typically the kind of person that rolls with the punches and I've gotten really good at picking myself up, dusting myself off, and moving forward after landing on my ass a few times (and occasionally pretty hard).

But this week has been one of the those weeks that makes you pause, look at the ceiling and think to oneself "all right...dammit. WHAT the hell?!". A person can only take so much in any given period of time, and maybe it's natural for us to stop and look around once in a while and take stock.

Especially if it happens to be in the middle of the stairs as you're sitting on your ass because you fell again.

I fell down the stairs in November. November 19th to be exact. The day my son left for boot camp and five years to the day after my hip replacement surgery. (That was its own 'what the HELL' moment...but whatever.) Turns out I tore 2 ligaments in my foot when I fell so I am currently sporting an oh-so-fashionable sexy boot brace from the knee down for the next 3-5 weeks because it hasn't healed right yet.

Then I fell again a few days ago. Not down the stairs this time, just on the stairs. I wasn't hurt...well, nothing but my pride anyway. But I just sat there and started crying. I used to be a dancer and a runner. I took really good care of myself and I have always been in really good shape. So this....this new existence...is really hard for me to understand sometimes. Even if it has been over 10 years now.

I started dancing when I was 7 years old. I ran cross country starting in junior high. The idea that I couldn't do something never occurred to me. But now I have fallen on the frickin stairs twice in 147 days. (YES, I counted them ...stupid stairs)

This isn't me. When I look in the mirror, I look like me. When I open my mouth, I sound like me. But this is not me. This is some alternate-reality-broken-version of me, but this is not me. This version of me has my hair (well...except for the grey ones) and my eyes...my memories, and all the same people in my life. But this is not me.

I think most people with a chronic illness, no matter what it is...but especially if it's chronic pain or something really life altering, look in the mirror and wonder who it is they see there. It's all part of mourning the loss of a part of yourself. And sometimes that can take a long time.

If you've read any of my blogs, you know that my life is divided up into the "before" and the "after". Before is who I was before July 17, 2001 and After is anything and everything after that day. That's when my life began to change. It started with pain in my left arm and 12 years later it has progressed into 6 surgeries, too many procedures to count, and 2 express trips down the stairs.

I see the girl in the mirror, but that's not me.

VD

I haven't been blogging as much lately. An awful lot has happened in the last year and some of it I'm still processing and I tend to do that in my journals as opposed to online, but I will post my yearly take on VD...Valentine's Day...or venereal disease, which you can get from spending your Valentine's Day with the wrong person .

The kidlet, in her ever present mindset of wanting to learn about the world around her, and us in our homeschooling philosophy, allow her to learn about history as it happens and the days we celebrate. We learned about MLK on his day, and Lincoln on his birthday the other day. December 7th we watched videos on FDR's speech on Pearl Harbor, the infamous "Day of Infamy" speech.

So today she wanted to know why we celebrate St. Valentine's Day and who was this guy anyway?

Turns out this guy was hanging out during the Roman Empire days, refusing to give up his Christian faith, marrying Romans, and generally causing hate and discontent in the Empire. So High Dude Claudius (his official title...or something) decides this guy is a pain in his ass and has to go. Valentine is arrested and imprisoned which is actually not going too bad and Claudius decides maybe this guy isn't so bad and starts liking him a little, hanging out with him, and trying to get this guy off his soap box. That's when Valentine made the mistake of trying to convert Claudius to Christianity and all hell broke loose. Now Claudius is really pissed and Valentine is sentenced to be beaten and stoned. (Good, tolerant guys, those Romans!)

Unfortunately beating the living crap out of this guy and stoning him doesn't work and he's still alive, so he then gets sentenced to be beheaded on February 14th. The Christians don't like this and the Pope declares Valentine a martyr upon his execution because of his work in aiding Christians and marrying them during the Roman Empire. Information leads us to believe Valentine was executed and martyred in 269 or 270 AD.  In 496 AD Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

The Pope declares this guy a Saint, giving him the Patron Saint duties of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers and young people. You know, all the lovey-dovey crap we surround February 14th with. 

So, as you go about wishing your beloved a Happy Valentine's Day, be sure to pause in remembrance of a dude in the 3rd century that went about marrying Romans even though it was against the law, and he was eventually beheaded for. (Kind of makes the whole marriage equality thing these days look like a little less of a thing, am I right?) And if you're going to pray to Saint Valentine, be sure to be specific in case he gets those plagues and lovers mixed up. 

Bubby

T minus 3 days until I get in the car and drive to Chicago to see my only son graduate from boot camp. He's almost 19 years old and wow! It has been a ride.

All I've ever wanted to do is raise a good man. I didn't have a brother, or a Dad, or even a Grandpa as a positive male role model when I was growing up. I didn't have any male role models. They say a girl's first love is her Dad but my Father bailed on me when I was 6. My mother re-married, but out of her husbands, 2 are now dead and 2 are MIA. To be fair, one never had a chance. He was the one I told "you're not my dad and I don't have to listen to you". So when he and my Mom split up it wasn't any great loss in my life. The one guy that stuck around and made me realize what it felt like to have a Dad died last year.

D at 5 months old

D was "Grampa's boy". Grampa was the only one that could soothe my son when he would scream for hours with colic. I had my kids young so they have never had the ideal life (but to be honest, who does?). I had my son and all I ever wanted for him was to grow up to be a good man.

D at 18 months old

I was a young mom and we had some bumpy times, and once in a while it would end up being me and Bubby looking at each other like "now what??". As the years went by and I learned more about how to be a better mom, I did better for my kids. And truthfully, with each subsequent child I learned more and did better. Because with the first one you sterilize anything and everything that might come within 50 feet of the kid. With the second one, you rinse it off if it hits the ground, and by the third one...eh, you figure they'll be all right pretty much in spite of what you do. So I did a little better with my son than with his older sister, but not quite as well as I did with his baby sister.

D at 6 years

I didn't have the kind of little boy that went running through the house, shooting bad guys and tracking mud. He wasn't the typical sports/cars kind of noisy little boy. He didn't build forts in his room, but he did build "boogie traps". He was quieter and preferred to play with his cars and and build stuff with Lego's. As he got older, it was books and robots and building electronics circuits.

D and I had some bumpy years. Tough years. "I emptied out his room" years. I kept telling myself that all I wanted was to raise a good man. There were times I might have thrown up my hands and thought "UGH how is this possible??".

But we made it. He's amazing. And I'm not just saying that because he's my only son and I'm his Mom and I have some kind of bias or something.

He's grown up to be a smart, sweet, funny guy. He can make me laugh until I have tears rolling down my face, especially when he's "reviewing" a movie.  He's a good man. He believes in honor and courage. He faces things that scare him and does them anyway. He's kind and believes in chivalry. He believes in protecting those he loves. He's amazing at math and I'm proud to see my little science geek having grown up into a man that uses all those things in his new career as an Electronics Tech in submarines.

graduating!

Nineteen years ago I was living in Huntsville, Alabama and I had just turned 20. I was in my last trimester and I had no idea how much my life was about to change. My only son has now grown up. We made it through some tough years and I have watched him turn into a smart, honorable man that I couldn't be more proud of.

This week I'll be watching him graduate into another phase of his life. He's now a United States Sailor. The next time I see my boy, he will be in uniform.

How the years fly by!