On the Books

It took me birthing four children to finally see my body indefinitely altered by it. Having previously taken for granted the ease with which my weight seemed to drop away and my waist shrink back close to where it began before kids, every time, except the fourth. The babe I grew proud as the rest who left proof of his glorious arrival in everything from the loose skin that now sags around the width of my stomach, to the extra pounds that stuck around long after the fact of his easy birth. Leaving me weighed by new insecurities I know I don't cary alone. Feelings of self doubt, and defeat, that kind of change comes to ignite. Simply because I don't like the way my jeans fit anymore. And I don't feel comfortable in a two piece like I did for so many years before. As much as I tell myself it's a trite issue to lend much mind to, it still gets me down more than I wish it I would allow to. And yet some days it seems to feed itself 

On that topic, in case you missed it, Luana wrote something spectacular about embracing the natural unraveling of time that comes to settle in body, face and experience. She said before that she didn't have the urge to write the way she does until after she had children and I thank God - when I read her prose - that the will came then, rather than never at all. She is a stunning storyteller and the essay is not the kind you pass up. Read it, pass it along. To everyone you know could use it. And then raise a glass to your graying hair, crows feet and happy, healthy sagging skin that brought the great gift of these wild children that keep us earning these wrinkles. Day in and day out. 
For better and for worse. 


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