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I have always been a woman.
Even in the midst of body-morphing. Even in the midst of a life gripped in terror. Even in the midst of an eating disorder that hijacked my frail body. Even in the midst of a mind that betrayed me. Even in the midst of never feeling like I had the curves to make me real. During it all, every moment of my adult life I have been and always will be a woman.
First, because I choose to be a woman. I want to be and that is what makes it so.
When did it become so hard to meet such a simple criteria of allowing ourselves to be what we want?
Any kind of woman that we want. Or don’t want to be. Anything we want to wear, say, champion, reshape (bodies, minds and hearts). I posted a picture of my daughter and I as my cover photo on Facebook. It is not the angle that enlarges my cheeks; my face is fuller. That happens when you gain 20+ pounds. The face and the body I imagined on a bustling woman who had tied an apron around her generous curves is now mine. I had felt insignificant in the talons of my eating disorder, at the time of diagnosis, defined as a phobic-inspired hunger...excuse the pun. I felt wispy. It hurt to hear the word “skinny” over and over again. And when people told me I looked great and had retained my girlish figure, I cringed. I shrunk. Because I knew I wasn’t healthy. You always know even when you claim to know better.
You can try to fool yourself, but you will never get to the depths of one-hundred percent full-on fooling when you are blinded in body dysmorphia and anxiety.
You will know as you refuse to take a bite of whatever it is, or as you overindulge in whatever it is, that it doesn’t feel good. You know by the emotion that is evoked, the one you wince at when it rises like a predictable tide.
But do not mistake these moments as one where you are not woman.
Because you are.
It means so much more than wedging yourself in that ballerina jewelry box. It means more than being the Pinterest mom and the mom-trying-her-best (AKA all of us), the mom who cries and has doubts and the woman who rails and lives an outraged life. It means more than uteruses and periods and boobs and makeup and high heels. It means you can wear all of those personalities or none at all.
It means the unapologetic loyalty and devotion to your womanhood.
To loving yourself through the internal train wrecks, the spontaneous terrible decisions, the doubts, the good and bad (feeling) bathing suit days, the days when you fall off the wagon of rewriting whatever lifestyle habit, or the days you get on. It is who you are and who you are not, to borrow a line from the vows of one of my failed marriages, and a place where I had to forgive myself so hard.
It is when you stand up and sit and kneel and bear down and vaginally deliver babies and have them cut from you like a warrior. It is never delivering a baby, or having fur babies. It is adoption and again, nothing at all, if that is what you so choose. It is what you try and the tentative toeing of the line. It is the belief you can do everything. The belief you don’t have to do anything if that resounds in your gut.
The unrecognized tools in your box and the ones you use too much. It is all your relationships rolled up like a pod ready to burst with all the complexities of you. And it is how you interact or don’t with others, like and unlike. People you love and hate. Self-loving your self-doubts so you finally feel better about yourself and go on to walk the world with crater-cracking impact, or knowing that you feel like a zero, but wiping your tears and going after your passions with unmatched zeal. It is embracing absent intentions in your grand scheme, or assigning it every weight in the universe.
You, beautiful, radiant women with the voices that will echo through each chamber of your hearts.
You gorgeous bombshell inside and out, sans makeup and all dolled up to appear more bewitching and arresting even though you rock those yoga pants (sans class attendance).
I have always felt the bonds of sisterhood.
That we can gather over the miracles of who we are innately, and magnify them. I can commune with the women in Ghana, the misses in Sweden, the mamacitas in Mexico. A kindred and tying bond loops us all closer. A quiet understanding of what we all go through, raise our hearts and fists to in unison. It is there simply by being woman.
So, I tell myself today. It is not that I wasn’t a woman before, that once I reached a goal weight I would feel more womanly.
I am a conqueror and courageous, but I am not more womanly because of my bust size. I am not more womanly because I see every gal staring back in the mirror at me and can better relate to nutritional goals now. I am more womanly because after decades I finally love myself enough to accept me in the phases of my life. For the pain I gave and received. For my heart I gave and received. For what I held back and only imagined into reality.
I hope as you read this, no matter where you are on your journey that you will stop for a moment and group hug yourself with all the overlapping facets of you, in all the sloppiness of learning, and changing and getting better and getting worse. That you will realize it is not the decisions you make that define you; it is who you are inside and the woman firmly already in place in your soul. The one you know so well and the one who can’t wait to meet you. Healing from my eating disorder means so much more than going up a pants size. It means allowing a new truth to enter my heart, and the surprise gift I opened for myself. Me. In all my glory and non-glory! I love her finally.
But I jilted her at the altar of my being for too damn long.
I was always good enough and I was always a woman. As are you.