In my skin.

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you feel like you're reading something and YOU could have written it? TDH Man sent me a link yesterday and honestly, it made me teary-eyed. I swear, it's like this blogger was channeling me; I could have written this.  Change her hair color to my blonde-red-auburn-whatever and it's me, even down to the height. It was eerie and foreign and sad all at once.  Why?  Well, because it mirrors an issue that I've been dealing with lately and I've been ashamed to admit for a while: I'm uncomfortable in my own skin. There, said it.

When I was younger, I never had issues with my body image. And if I did, I either ignored them or just got through them without a problem. I'm lucky enough that the majority of the women in my life weren't self-conscious about their bodies and I can't recall my blood-mother ever, ever saying a single thing about her body other than complaining about the large scar on her knee. My father, who was the one major constant presence in my under-ten years, tried to instill an equal-opportunity atmosphere into his daughters without being overbearing about it. One of the first pieces of clothing that I can remember owning was a shirt that said "Anything boys can do, girls can do better" and my Dad lived by that mantra. I once asked him if he would have preferred to have a son and he looked at me as if I had three heads and answered blandly "Why? There isn't anything that a son can do that you couldn't."

Me, days before G made his very late arrival

So imagine my surprise when, three kids later, I can't stand to be naked in front of a mirror. I loved being pregnant with my children. I love breastfeeding my youngest child right now. I love knowing that my body was, and is still, sustaining a life outside my own. Yet... I don't feel like me. It's taken me a long time to admit that it's because my body has changed and now, my mind has yet to catch up with it which is causing all sorts of havoc internally.

It seems that TDH Man and I have been talking about this issue a lot lately. We've made a pact to ditch the sweets in an effort to get our eating more in line with what we believe is healthy. We've tried the Paleo style of eating and while it 'worked' for us in the beginning, I disliked the fad of it all and became rather disillusioned about what was 'right' to eat and what wasn't. I realized that I don't like strict rules about my food and I needed to find peace with eating how I wanted to eat without feeling like an entire community was staring over my shoulder, tsking me to death when I let a piece of pasta or rice pass my lips. Do I eat that 'stuff' now? Mostly not. I aim as much as possible for WHOLE FOODS, foods in their original form, cooked how I like them, skipping overly processed things when I can. No raw-only diets, no grain-free diets, no eat-this-and-never-that diets. No diets in general. Just eating. So that's step one, I'm guessing, in my effort to move towards something new.

But will it be enough? I've changed. My body has changed. The years, gasp, are catching up to me. And yes, I'm only in my mid-30's. Laugh if you want, at my naivete, but if you have one iota of sensitivity in you, you won't. You'll understand that every person is dealing with their own demons and struggling with what they want versus what they have. I know that God has given me this body to care for while I am on His earth, but I'm struggling. I'm struggling to find peace with what I've transformed into and to find a way to be me in this skin again.