I helped a friend yesterday who sells clothing through a company that does home shows. We invite people and then they can see, touch and try on clothes before they order what they want. It is the best of visiting friends and shopping rolled into one. It is really not my thing to “sell stuff” for the most part, but this always ends up being fun and exhausting.
This post really isn’t about that though.
While trying on things before anyone else arrived (I usually get to try on and sort of “model” lots of pretty things) I made lots of comments about not wanting to show my knees, which gravity is having its way with, or my upper arms, which have always been disproportionately big compared to the rest of me. The company rep who was there to help us looked at me oddly.
Later, as other women came and went, I heard most of them say things similar to what I had said. They complained about their midsections, their legs, their butts, their arms, their necks. And I realized how absurd we all are.
We live in a climate that is warm. Today, a day in February, it is sunny and 80 degrees. In the summer time it is often in the 90’s or even triple digits. We were buying spring and summer clothes at this soirée and yet we were all looking at sweaters to hide our arms.
Ever since then I have been thinking about how we are led to believe that if our bodies and faces aren’t perfect then they must be covered up. As we age we are concerned with that more and more. We buy more creams, try to eat less food and complain constantly.
I have two arms that are big because they are strong to move furniture and scenery. I have legs, that while getting a bit beaten up in my old age, work marvelously to get me around even to the point of walking to get my haircut, to shop, to go to church. My neck might be getting a bit crinkly, but it still holds up my head and houses the majority of what produces the sound when I sing and talk, swallows when I eat, lets air travel up and down.
When I was a child, my parents were friends with a lady who had a very wrinkly face. It was probably the most wrinkly I have ever seen. As I child I figured she was hundreds of years old and that is why her face was like that.
But I thought her face was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, because all of her wrinkles were due to the fact that she smiled all of the time. The lines on her face followed the contours of her mouth and cheeks and eyes perfectly as they all crinkled up into a big, genuine smile.
I didn’t know her well because I was just a kid, but I thought she seemed so friendly and loving with that smiling face and I hoped someday that my face would be all wrinkly because I had smiled so much.
I don’t think I have succeeded yet. I need to smile bigger and harder and I need to grow older, maybe to 100.
I need to show my arms when it is 100 degrees outside and know that I have amazing arms, not because of how they look, but because of what they do.
I told a friend at this clothing sale who was concerned about showing a scar that I thought scars were pretty. And I do. They are interesting and different on each of us. They are a part of the story of our lives and they make us who we are.
Then I realized that I was hiding my legs because of all of the scars. And again I realized I need to work on that, on being proud of what I have been through and of the hard job my legs do keeping me on the go constantly.
So ladies, let’s quit being so afraid to just be ourselves, no matter what our age. Let’s be pleased with who we are, where we have been and where we are going. Let’s show ourselves to our best advantage, of course, but not by always hiding and covering all that makes us who we are.
Let’s work to make ourselves our healthiest best and then be proud of who we are. Let’s be grateful for our working parts (and those that don’t work quite so well anymore) and quit hiding.
