The Rules and My Body

My body is not perfect. My skin is not tight and smooth. I have lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. My muscles do not make themselves known by sight alone.  My belly wiggles and jiggles when I move. I have rolls on my back and rolls on my belly. Thanks to my diastasis, my belly pouches out, likely making strangers wonder if I am currently pregnant. Even my breasts are not immune and due to aging and pregnancy, they are larger and no longer as perky as they once were. Stretch marks stretch across my belly like some sort of weird road map to nowhere, some of them still angry and red, some turned silvery. My hair has strands of silver and white peppered throughout it. No, my body is not "perfect."

There are "rules" to having a perfect body, even a postpartum body, and mine does not follow them. It must be tight. It must have curves in all the right places and none in any of the "wrong" places. It must not show any signs of aging or any signs that a baby (or 4) once resided inside. It must "bounce back" from pregnancy. It must be less. And if the owner isn't striving to make it less, to get her "prepregnancy body back" then that owner must have let themselves go.

Well, fuck that.

My body may not be perfect according to "the rules," but it is worthy of love. My body may not be perfect according to "the rules," but it is mine. My body may not be perfect according to "the rules," but it is actually perfect.

This body, with all its lumps and bumps, with all its stretch marks, with all its scars,  is perfect. It has housed 5 babies, grown 4 of those to squishy baby perfection. It has birthed 3 of those babies at home. It has withstood the anguish of miscarriage and saying goodbye to a baby much, much too soon. It has nourished 4 babies after pregnancy with creamy breastmilk. It has provided thousands and thousands and thousands of ounces of milk to both strangers' babies and loved ones' babies. It has rocked and carried 4 babies through seemingly endless nights. It has ran through freezing cold days in the dead of winter and boiling hot days in the summer. It has hiked the Rocky Mountains and taken in the fresh mountain air as it rafted down the Kicking Horse River. It has walked the streets of Rome, never tiring, stopping only to marvel at the sights and enjoy another gelato. It has cried as I have said goodbye to someone loved. It has cried as I struggled to find my footing in the classroom. It has stayed up all night studying for an exam in university, and then managed to stay awake during the exam too. It has stood before all my family and friends as I declared my love and commitment to Mr Blueberry. It has laughed countless laughs with friends and loved ones. It has listened to and held friends who have wept while they felt broken or afraid. It has heard their testament when nobody else would. It has withstood all of the criticism that I have thrown at it, and it still stands here waiting for me to love it. 

This is my body. In all of its lumpy and bumpy glory. This body is perfect. It is worthy of love right now, as it is. Is there bits of it that I would like to change? Sure. I'd like to heal my diastasis. I'd like to be able to feel supported by my core in my daily life. I'd like to strengthen my muscles so I can continue to carry in all the grocery bags at once. Do I want to make it smaller? Do I want to make it less? Not really.

Because I am more than my body.

And I don't want to make myself less.

My worth is not determined by my body. It is determined by so much more.