I have this theory that God lets your eyesight wane as you get older so you don't get depressed. Every now and then, however, something will happen that reminds me that the bloom is off the rose. Today's revelation was courtesy of the fluorescent lighting in the ladies' room at work. There I was, washing my hands in the sink like the good girl that I am, and I realized that I suddenly had the chest of my first grade teacher. With my shoulders back, my skin is smooth and pretty much wrinkle free, but if I'm wearing a V-neck, when I rub my hands together this puckered bottom of a riverbed in August appears, and honest to Betsy, it looks as though there is a staple in the middle of it holding it to my breast bone. What IS that?
The photographs don't help much, either. I'm usually OK with the mirror (although I'll be doing the Katharine Hepburn scarves and turtlenecks as soon as the weather permits), but the photographs are a quick trip down the Humility Highway. How is it that everyone else photographs normally, but the camera always distorts the half of the frame where I'm standing? I've heard that the camera adds pounds, but what snarky twist of malice makes it only add them to me?
One of these days (coming soon) I will be so disgusted at the pictures that I will get around to exercising and maybe succeed in changing the situation. But when I stop to think about it I know that if my friends gain five or fifty I don't care. I usually don't even notice. I only see them. I am glad to see them. I accept them as they are, and who they are is so much more important to me than what they weigh. It's so difficult to cut ourselves the same slack.
Today I will thank my chubby little legs for carrying me back and forth to the subway in this brain- numbing heat. My bones, even with their ever-fashionable osteoporosis, still manage to support me and move me to where I need to be. I need glasses, but I can still see the smiles on the faces of the people that I love. And my hands, which have not been "ring free" since my last kid was born, can reach out to pat a shoulder, or to type, or work in the garden (but hardly ever to dust). So today is "Wonderful Me" day. It should be "Wonderful You" day, too. And tomorrow we'll go back to counting points on Weight Watchers.
The photographs don't help much, either. I'm usually OK with the mirror (although I'll be doing the Katharine Hepburn scarves and turtlenecks as soon as the weather permits), but the photographs are a quick trip down the Humility Highway. How is it that everyone else photographs normally, but the camera always distorts the half of the frame where I'm standing? I've heard that the camera adds pounds, but what snarky twist of malice makes it only add them to me?
One of these days (coming soon) I will be so disgusted at the pictures that I will get around to exercising and maybe succeed in changing the situation. But when I stop to think about it I know that if my friends gain five or fifty I don't care. I usually don't even notice. I only see them. I am glad to see them. I accept them as they are, and who they are is so much more important to me than what they weigh. It's so difficult to cut ourselves the same slack.
Today I will thank my chubby little legs for carrying me back and forth to the subway in this brain- numbing heat. My bones, even with their ever-fashionable osteoporosis, still manage to support me and move me to where I need to be. I need glasses, but I can still see the smiles on the faces of the people that I love. And my hands, which have not been "ring free" since my last kid was born, can reach out to pat a shoulder, or to type, or work in the garden (but hardly ever to dust). So today is "Wonderful Me" day. It should be "Wonderful You" day, too. And tomorrow we'll go back to counting points on Weight Watchers.
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