body image: on loving yourself
Skinny/fat, tall/short, girl/boy...
Body image, to me, is such a fickle, fluid thing that can (and will) change at the drop of a hat.
For me, I've two separate body images: one: the reality; two: the body only I can see, Like hieroglyphics, the body beneath the body is an encrypted language whose meaning only I can decipher.
The body I see when I look in the mirror is a bit short and stocky, covered in skin flawed by scars and blemishes and shining, vein-like stretchmarks. There's a slight droop in the tummy that's less pronounced than it was a handful of months ago, and the hints of an hourglass figure are beginning to show like the sun peering through a haze of clouds. Hips fan and blend into strong, muscled thighs, which trail off into tightly-wound calves.
The body I see is a bit rough around the edges, but the potential that lurks beneath the surface is hidden, but there.
The potential body I know is there, the one I can see if I close my eyes and envision, isn't skin-and-bones, but a thin that's average but with a bit more to love. My face is more angular, less soft-and-round. My fingers are longer, not "Snicker-bar fingers" as my dad calls them, and are twitching to tickle the ivory keys. My skin's unmarked, uninterrupted in its soft, indecisive tan-not-tan coloring, but my arms, thick and covered in a smattering of hair, remains the same.
Sometimes, the actual body I think I should have is graced with a penis, and other times, instead of what I was born with or what I sometimes fantasize about, there's an unsure haze down there, an androgynous question-mark marring my lower half.
As it is, I like to take myself as I am: me, whether I feel androgynous, masculine or girly; fat, getting-there, or satisfied. I trace accepting, reverent fingertips along the spidery stretchmark paths, a permanent tattoo nature graced me (though sometimes it's more of a vex).
I look into my eyes and smile, taking in the pudge, the shortness, the limp, sad hair in the foggy bathroom mirror, naked and fresh from the shower, and say "Hello, I love you."
Dear FList,
What is body image to you?