I loved Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance. She was athletic, powerful, and she looked like she was having a BLAST. It's also been pointed out that she looks like a real woman instead of a Barbie doll...and she'd have to, to be sporting muscles like that and to have that kind of stamina.
She looks like a hella fit woman.
Over the last few years as my weight has continued to sneak up (following the Friday Five theme of sneaking here), I've changed some things. I don't wear uncomfortable shoes any more. Ever. Life is too short. I also dress more casually for work...while Ken was sick I developed a sort of uniform (slacks, one of several colored t-shirts, a jacket or overshirt) and wore it all the time. This is rather astonishing, when I remember that in junior high and high school I had a little daybook and every day I wrote down exactly what I wore, to be sure I never repeated an outfit in a two-week period.
REALLY?? Who was THAT girl!? Someone scared and uncertain, for sure. Oh, and she thought she was fat. :) Ha, if only she had known.
Back in December, before I went to The Glorious Wedding of Great Joy, I made my BFF go with me to help me buy an outfit for the festivities. I knew it was going to be in a size I didn't like, and I knew I would need support for that. Thank goodness for her! (Although she did, on our shopping trip, buy herself some shoes in a child's size, because she is THAT petite. But I forgive her.)
Later, on my own, feeling horrible about myself and how I looked in the new purple suit, I went out and bought "cheap Spanx" - the Assets brand at Target. If you don't know what Spanx are, they are GIRDLES. Lots and lots of different kinds of girdles. Which I, as a feminist and someone wishing and trying to love my body, have always refused to even consider.
You know what makes me furious about those products? Take a look at their website. Do any of those women look like they need "shaping" or "smoothing" or "slimming"? No, they do not. Because if they put real people on the website, no one would buy the stuff, because it'd be clear: Spanx aren't magic...they are foundation garments. And, um: they hurt. No one wearing them is smiling like those gals do.
So, here's the good part of the story.
I arrived in Boston and met up with my friends for the wedding rehearsal. And we laughed and we cried and we hugged each other, and we ate dinner at a very suspicious restaurant...
and I went home to bed at my wonderful friend's house...
and I felt empowered. Filled with love and joy, and no longer afraid. No longer needing to hide in that way. I got up the day of the wedding and when it came time to get dressed, I left that miserable garment in the suitcase. Ha HA!!!
And here is the whole wedding party, including me as one of the flower girls. :)
Having said all that...I want and I need to make a change. But I want to do it well...with eating right and exercise, as my chiropractor and I get my muscles back where they need to be for such activity. Not with something that would squeeze the life out of me, and punish me.
I want to live.
