on having a big butt, varicose veins, a wee lopsided abdominal distention and being a bad mamma jamma

Sometimes (late at night, when I'm driving) I think about this whole weight-loss body-change thing and wonder if it doesn't feed into our insecurities on an even deeper level. I mean, in losing weight we move closer to the "ideal" but the problem with that "ideal" come all these impossible (and let me just say it: fucking shallow) tangential expectations. Buns of steel. Abs of Steel. Six-Pack. No Cellulite. Ripped Arms. Low Body Fat. Yadda Yadda Yadda and Blah Blah Blah.

Other than a few persistent issues (what can I say, I've used my body for a living for a lotta years) I'd say I'm in the best shape ever. I'm strong, I'm healthy, good cardio health, great blood pressure, you name it. So I've got all that good stuff. And I am inherently "flawed" in the eyes of this other, dominant vision of healthy perfection. I got me a dimply ass and my legs have got enough spider veins for a horror flick. My big strong arms still have that waving old lady thing going on, but you know what? So do Mick Jagger's. Yeah, my waist and belly are smaller, but there's no undoing that 4-inch scar and all the bulging built by the healing of that open wound.

I could go on. I should go on, but it's a really lovely day out and I wanna go paint my toenails.

The point is this: we have choices-- to be in our bodies, to be in our power, to push from within or to be outside, looking in, judging and squelching and squishing ourselves to be what? All the same? Airbrushed wonders? A more palatable vision of womanhood? The ideal human being?

I sound like I'm all wound up. I'm not. I'm mellow gold. I sometimes laugh at the irony that with my plethoric imperfections I am so powerful, so capable, so utterly free.