Fleshing It Out-To Thine Own Body Be True

It's time for the unveiling—not of a newly decorated house or a piece of art, but my body which has been covered in layers since late Fall. Winter has come and gone and with it resolutions to diet and exercise. I've managed to accomplish the latter but it's done little or nothing to kick-start a sluggish metabolism. An extra ten pounds is dripping from my middle like a half deflated basketball. One glance sideways in the mirror and I sink into dismay, a state of mind I experience every spring.

Short of liposuction, I've concluded that the game is up, at least for the up-coming summer season. Once again I must let go of the fantasy of looking like a People Magazine profile. Not that that was ever a realistic option for a chronic chubby like me whose mother was forever affirming the fact that I had a less than perfect body.

So here I am, far into adulthood, still castigating myself for a body I've never befriended, buying women's magazines with articles about quick weight loss and signing up for Weight Watchers for the hundredth time in hopes of squeezing into last season's wardrobe.

"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels," a skinny friend of mine said as she ran by me on the jogging trail the other day. I watched her firm little fanny bounce down the tarmac while I huffed and puffed to catch up.

But then I remembered a recent skiing vacation with my grandkids.

 Of course, I couldn't keep up with them, but I never once felt left behind—I was in the game, not standing on the sidelines and taking pictures!  Still, it wasn't until I shared a lift ride with a complete stranger that my perspective shifted. "I wish my mother was in the shape you are and could do this kind of stuff with our kids," he volunteered.

Aside from a flash of momentary pride, his comment got me thinking. Why do I keep wishing for the body I had twenty years ago when what I need now is simply a body that works. We talk about coming of age—seems to me that should include a rearranging of my entire being—body, mind, and spirit. If I can't accept how my body is evolving then I will never be at peace in mind and spirit.

It was the Jungian analyst, Clarissa Pinkola Estes who suggested that "most of us see our bodies as our undoing even though they protect, support and fire our spirits." For my second journey I need this vessel to serve me in new ways. It's no longer an issue of fat versus form or size versus ability. I need form and ability not because of vanity but because I want, indeed need, to participate in my own life. How soon I have forgotten the joy I felt climbing in and out of the Grand Canyon, hiking on the Inca Trail, or clocking hundreds of miles on the Cape Cod bike trail.

It's time to become accepting not rejecting of how this body of mine is evolving. It's about celebrating sustainability—not unlike my mother's 1991 Corolla which has clocked 250,000 miles. With regular lubrications, the old car just keeps going. Perhaps yoga should replace aerobics and long hikes replace race walks. That's the new kind of high maintenance that I demand—the kind that keeps me going, not necessarily makes me pretty. As the years go on, I shall continue to flesh out such thoughts in an effort to be true.

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The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself is the currently featured book in the Getting Better All The Time group. Written by Joan Anderson, it's a story about finding yourself and what's important in your life. To join the group and stay on top of all of the new articles and excerpts, click here.