A Recovery Victory

I'm pushing a nine-year-old on a swing and then hopping from rock to rock in a creek. I'm jumping and running and laughing. I'm finally in my body, not in my mind.

Maybe it was the child-like splendor of my day yesterday, but I shed my insecurities and the perceived ideal of "beautiful" that was once ingrained in my head. Yesterday, I just let go and I was free.

As I pumped my legs back and forth on the swing, I was thankful that I had strong, healthy legs. I admired the strength of them, and the lovely shape from my ankles to my hips. I looked at my thighs and I liked them.

As I leapt across the rocks, avoiding the cool water below, I was thankful for my arms, which are getting stronger and stronger every day. They allowed me to keep my balance as I navigated the slippery stones to avoid splashing into the water.

As I frolicked through the trees and shrubs, I was thankful for my body, which I nourished so that I could run and play in the park with two awesome boys. This body is mine, and it's been through a lot, so I am so grateful that it helps me do activities I love, and travel to different places, and cuddle with the one I love.

I don't just want recovery, I want victory. Yesterday I felt closer than ever to it. I didn't need to body-check, I didn't need to count the calories going into my body and I didn't need to count the calories being burned. I didn't need to step on a scale, nor scrutinize my waist. I loved my body and I respected it and nourished it and thanked it.

Somewhere in my past I forgot what beauty is. It's not being stick-thin and it's not having curves. It's not wearing makeup or going bare-faced. It's not having long, flowing locks or a short, spunky hairdo. It's not wearing a pretty dress or lounging in pajamas.

It's being a person who respects herself and loves herself and cares for herself. It's spending time with others and listening to them and laughing with them and playing with them and helping them. Society tries to tell us what beauty is, but they've got it all wrong. Beauty is you and beauty is me and beauty is every woman who wakes up in the morning and lives her life as herself...not as someone our sick culture says she should be.

I'm not beautiful like you. I'm beautiful like ME.