Body acceptance?

I had a moment of clarity this morning in the shower, which is where and when I have most of my moments of clarity. I was standing there thinking how much I hated the way I looked in some of the pictures from our family holiday photo shoot, and then I thought of a headline I saw yesterday about how If Jennifer Lawrence Needs This Much Airbrushing, We're All Doomed and I also thought of this video about Advertising's Image of Women that my friend posted on Facebook, and then I thought of another Facebook friend, an acquaintance really, who has a similar body shape to mine and how she wears her lumps and rolls loud and proud in all the pictures she posts.

I shook my head at this acquaintance, how even for her wedding day - her wedding day! - she didn't wear a proper bra or support garment under her wedding dress. "She could have been so pretty," I found myself thinking. Her makeup and hair were done so beautifully, and it was all ruined by a too-tight wedding dress that highlighted her sagging breasts and lumpy midsection! Good lord, can she please go get a bra fitting? Like, today??

But, wait... I thought I believed in body acceptance? My judgement of my acquaintance is really a reflection of how I feel about myself and has little to nothing to do with her. On a logical level I feel that what she does with her breasts, her body, her wedding dress, whatever, is totally and completely her choice and that I, as someone who believes in body acceptance, respect that. On an emotional level, however, it all goes to pot (because it's really about me).

I always like and really appreciate when I see things like the above-referenced headline and video cross my desktop, because it makes me feel like there's some measure of truth about body realness out there. It's only a partial truth, though, and that's what my moment in the shower was about. We talk about media's fucked up portrayl of women's bodies but I'm not sure we talk enough about the full impact it has on us on a daily basis, outside of looking at a screen or page. We can look at a magazine cover of Jennifer Lawrence and logically we know it's Photoshopped but what about the emotions we experience the next morning, when there's no magazine around, and we strip down for a shower and catch a glimpse of body in the mirror? I've railed against the Yahoo! Shine channel plenty before today so I won't revisit the issue but suffice to say, I'm not surprised they would come up with a headline insinuating that we're all doomed because our bodies aren't as thin and perfect as Jennifer Lawrence's even before she was Photoshopped.

Today in the shower I confronted an idea that had gotten completely lost or maybe was never there to begin with. What about really and truly making peace with my body exactly as it is right now? What if I stayed this exact same way for the rest of my life? What if every single picture taken of the back of me were like the ones the photographer took of me holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path: with my bra band riding ridiculously high on my back and digging into my back fat as it wraps around under my arms, and with a muffin top over the waist of my pants, and with a huge, flat, wide butt? I think I assumed that the way I look is only temporary, that tomorrow is when I'll start losing weight (or continue to lose weight) and be on the path to what my "real" size and shape is.

Not to be shunted aside is the feeling that I'll die an early death and miss watching my son grow up if I don't immediately start losing weight to get to this mythical size and shape. It's a very conflicting feeling because my sister did die what was more or less an "early" death due to health conditions rooted in obesity. And, if I'm going to be more honest than I really care to be, the thing the photographer captured about my face that I hate so much is that my eyes look like my sister's. They're crinkled up into squinting because I'm smiling so big and crazy trying to make my son smile big and crazy for the camera. I don't want to look like my sister because I remember my judgmental thoughts of her big body and how I vowed to never look that way. Mostly, I don't want to look like my sister because I don't want to die like my sister did.

But... I also don't want to care what I look like from the back when I'm holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling his little hand in mine. I don't want to care that my eyes look my sister's when I smile unabashedly because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling happy. Body acceptance folks advocate for "the moment" rather than chasing a mythical size or shape, but sometimes to the exclusion of possible health concerns. That's why I'm not quite sure if I can wholly buy into the notion of total body acceptance.