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I heard someone say recently that "it's not what you weigh, it's how the weight makes you feel". Having just turned forty I am currently the heaviest I have ever been. Strangely though I probably feel more comfortable in my own skin than ever before.
When I think back to my teens I was just a skinny beanpole with no confidence and few social skills. I had no idea how to dress to suit my lanky frame and I felt tall and self-conscious next to my more compact friends.
In my twenties I got ill and my weight plummeted. In any photos taken of me then, when I was at my thinnest, I look frail and haunted. I spent a decade not liking myself very much and not valuing myself very highly. Then, as I approached 30, I met 'the man', my life was on a more even keel and the weight started to creep on.
And now I am 40. I have 2 beautiful girls, and the stretchmarks and war wounds to prove it. Two years of breastfeeding have taken there toll on my boobs, my tummy wobbles, my lap is built for comfort and my frame is built for squishy cuddles. And yet I like myself more than I have ever done.
They say that youth is wasted on the young, and looking back I can see what a fabulous figure I had, but that alone could never made me happy. One of the greatest consolations of getting older (and heavier) has been the freedom to be myself, just how I want to be. With no pressure to follow fashion or my peers.
Maybe I was always meant to be a bit chunky? And maybe all the happiness in my life weighs more than the sadness, anxiety and self-consciousness that came before.
How happy do you weigh? How has your weight fluctuated between the good and the bad times?
3 comments:
Very much with you on this. I turned 40 last December and I am the heaviest I've ever been too. But I'm happy. Okay, I could be slimmer and have a better frame without the wings and the muffin top but who cares? I have a wonderful life and that's all that matters.
CJ xx
So true. I was the lightest I have ever been when pretty miserable, lonely and scared. Now I am happy, loved and appreciated (?) I am a tubby heifer!
I agree with you whole heartedly, and having had 5 kids wouldn't expect to look like a top paid actrees who has the time to have surgery and get rid of the evidence of child bearing. i am 44 this year and wobbly on places, i dont look like a supermodel without my clothes on (unless its jelly we are modelling)and i am happy to fill my wrinkles with good old fat and not botax. Some women keep jimmy Choo shoe boxes i keep the packaging my babies come in, only i cannot put it in the bottom of the wardrobe.
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