I know it's old news....
...and I know I should probably not talk about it, but it's been on my mind and I think it will be until I write about it.
When I was a young married, I couldn't WAIT to get pregnant. So, of course, I had a hard time of it, and spent a long time trying. But after doctor's appointments and timed intercourse and taking my temperature and taking pills and all that other hullabaloo, it finally happened, and there I was, getting ready to be a mother.
When I started to show, my then-husband signed up and got himself a subscription to Playboy magazine.
Now, I knew that my shape was going to change when I got pregnant, and so did he. But it was something we both wanted very much, and it was completely worth whatever was going to happen to my shape to add a baby to the family. So when he decided that this would be a good time to get a glossy magazine filled with huge, pneumatic and aerodynamically impossible boobs and 18 inch waistlines regularly delivered to the house while my body was developing into a distinctly different shape, I was suddenly not so certain that what I was changing into remained in any way desirable. And it made me embarrassed about my body, for the first time since puberty, and in a way that I had never experienced before.
When I read about John Edwards, and his "indiscretion", I couldn't help but wonder what must have been going through Elizabeth Edwards' heart when she realized that the body that bore her husband four children and lived through the loss of one of them and valiantly fought breast cancer and continued to travel beside him through the grueling schedule of a campaigning politician, no matter how ill or tired, was, even periodically, replaced in his sight by the body of another woman.
I can't imagine how UGLY she felt, how sexless, how undesirable---but if I could say whatever I wanted to say to Elizabeth Edwards, it would have to be that whatever her husband did, it wasn't about her. That she still is beautiful in a way that is very rare, with a beauty that reflects such a strong and lovely soul that it shines out of her physical being. That she is, without any question, as gorgeous as she has ever been, and will only continue to grow more beautiful as time passes, because her dignity, and her grace, and her life-wisdom only grows as she grows older. That isn't a beauty that fades away, nor is it a beauty that can be replaced by someone with a younger body and a younger face.
And if I happened to run into John Edwards?
I would kick him square in the balls for being so STUPID, and so PREDICTABLE, and so INSENSITIVE, and so....ORDINARY.
And my boot in his balls would not just be for Elizabeth, but for ME, too. For that time so long ago when my gestating body was held up next to Playboy and found wanting. And for ALL of us who have ever had the man we loved make us feel embarrassed and ashamed and small, just for being who we are, and who cannot see what beauty we have because they're blinded by cheap TARTS who haven't walked the roads we've walked, usually for the sake of the very men who turn away.
Because this kind of thing--in John Edwards, in John McCain, in all men who have the power to so wound the women who love them and stand by them in such a despicable and degrading way--deserve nothing less than that.
Bitter? Me?
Oh hells yeah.
When I was a young married, I couldn't WAIT to get pregnant. So, of course, I had a hard time of it, and spent a long time trying. But after doctor's appointments and timed intercourse and taking my temperature and taking pills and all that other hullabaloo, it finally happened, and there I was, getting ready to be a mother.
When I started to show, my then-husband signed up and got himself a subscription to Playboy magazine.
Now, I knew that my shape was going to change when I got pregnant, and so did he. But it was something we both wanted very much, and it was completely worth whatever was going to happen to my shape to add a baby to the family. So when he decided that this would be a good time to get a glossy magazine filled with huge, pneumatic and aerodynamically impossible boobs and 18 inch waistlines regularly delivered to the house while my body was developing into a distinctly different shape, I was suddenly not so certain that what I was changing into remained in any way desirable. And it made me embarrassed about my body, for the first time since puberty, and in a way that I had never experienced before.
When I read about John Edwards, and his "indiscretion", I couldn't help but wonder what must have been going through Elizabeth Edwards' heart when she realized that the body that bore her husband four children and lived through the loss of one of them and valiantly fought breast cancer and continued to travel beside him through the grueling schedule of a campaigning politician, no matter how ill or tired, was, even periodically, replaced in his sight by the body of another woman.
I can't imagine how UGLY she felt, how sexless, how undesirable---but if I could say whatever I wanted to say to Elizabeth Edwards, it would have to be that whatever her husband did, it wasn't about her. That she still is beautiful in a way that is very rare, with a beauty that reflects such a strong and lovely soul that it shines out of her physical being. That she is, without any question, as gorgeous as she has ever been, and will only continue to grow more beautiful as time passes, because her dignity, and her grace, and her life-wisdom only grows as she grows older. That isn't a beauty that fades away, nor is it a beauty that can be replaced by someone with a younger body and a younger face.
And if I happened to run into John Edwards?
I would kick him square in the balls for being so STUPID, and so PREDICTABLE, and so INSENSITIVE, and so....ORDINARY.
And my boot in his balls would not just be for Elizabeth, but for ME, too. For that time so long ago when my gestating body was held up next to Playboy and found wanting. And for ALL of us who have ever had the man we loved make us feel embarrassed and ashamed and small, just for being who we are, and who cannot see what beauty we have because they're blinded by cheap TARTS who haven't walked the roads we've walked, usually for the sake of the very men who turn away.
Because this kind of thing--in John Edwards, in John McCain, in all men who have the power to so wound the women who love them and stand by them in such a despicable and degrading way--deserve nothing less than that.
Bitter? Me?
Oh hells yeah.