Reminiscence with me: my daughter is now 19 months old and I no longer can use the phrase, “I just had a baby” to make light of my bodies insecurities. I go to the gym at least 5 times a week and have for the last 7 months. I see subtle changes in myself, but nothing I would call Guinness about. My husband, knowing my determination and hearing my complaints, always thinks of me on his trips to the store. More times than not he will return with a sports bra, water bottle, or something just for me because he was thinking of me, really though, he is the perfect man. This same perfect man is also the culprit responsible for little yellow tank top. He missed the memo in, “yes, you can buy me a tank top so long as it’s not yellow, not little, not tight… baggy tee will do.”
I did not feel like picturing my body in anything that showed it off. It took me weeks before I even tried it on for the first time and even then I still had a 15 minute pep talk to myself before being burned by my reflection. Mirror, one; me, zero. While the scale tells me a number pretty close to what I was before my baby, my mirror hasn’t gotten the memo. The mirror still shows me a body that Hollywood would frown upon. I have grown and shrunk and stretched and lost and gained and dropped and… well, had a baby.
I’m a momma now.
Yes, I would have been much more comfortable in pants and a long flowy shirt and there would have been nothing wrong with that. There is never anything wrong with putting on what makes me feel good and wearing it proudly no matter my shape or size at the time. So, as much as I wanted to tell my husband, “Look, buddy, that’s not happening, so just forget about it, I’m not wearing that shirt to the gym with you.”
I stopped and I listened to his heart for a minute.
See, while it’s so easy for me to see all of the things that have changed, and all the areas that I need to “fix” that sweet husband of mine apparently doesn’t see things the way that I do when he looks at me. He has this crazy way of still seeing me… His wife. He still sees the woman that he fell in love with, and apparently, he is still attracted to her – baggy t-shirts and extra baby fluff. He knows that my role has changed, but when he looks at me I’m still Cor, not mommy. He sees the woman he fell in love with, the woman who said, “Yes” to becoming his wife. I don’t think he knows how to tell me, “Hey, remember when you were just mine?” And honestly? It feels so hard to remember how to be his. Half the time I don’t even remember how to be me. Putting myself last over and over again and being reminded by the mirror how different I am… sometimes, I don’t even know where to start.
So as I stared at myself in the mirror one last glance, I decided for today I would make that choice to be his. Wear what he picked because after all he picked me too. Because while I could have pushed my husband away and left him always wondering but never asking about that dang little yellow tank top, I chose to remember him, to wear it for him. And just as I chose that, I chose to remember a woman worth caring about, who has a husband that loves her and who is a person beyond being a Momma. I chose to remember that I am worth my own attention. And I chose to remember that if my husband thinks I’m attractive, then I am. I am not my competition. And sometimes showing him and reminding myself means wearing that little-yellow-really tight-tank-top, plus…the mirror said I looked more like a taxi van over a school bus anyways. #winning
Only gym pic I have. God forbid that lil yellow tank top! :-)
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