It’s interesting how the person who should love, admire and entice us the most, ourselves, is often times the one that does it least.
I used to berate myself years ago, in my singlehood, because I felt, I thought, if I were only skinnier, if I were only prettier, if I were only (fill in the blank), then someone would love me. Sigh. It took a lot of time, and looking at myself in the mirror of experiences, the mirror of images and the mirror of self-reflection to understand how perfect and lovable and sexy I was. I didn’t need to be someone else or somehow else. I was me.
Fast forward a few years and I have done something incredible: I made life! Isn’t that beyond incredible? And yet… there are parts of me that are not so loving to myself. The parts of me that look in the mirror and find more and bigger curves than there used to be. Why is it that my body should reflect an image of the kind of love I am meant to receive? Why do we expect our bodies to look and feel a certain way in order for them to be capable and worth being loved.
Sometimes (often) even though I have so much love and care around me (an incredible partner in crime and two tiny tyrant dragons), I need myself. I need to be able to look at myself with the same eyes I used to see me when I was fit and slender, when I could pull off, shamelessly, crop tops, tight fitting dresses and pencil skirts. I need to find my sexy again.
And here is where two local businesses came to my rescue. I had seen the website for Mayana lingerie a few times, browsed and said to myself, maybe later. The truth is I wanted those bras, badly. I have a box of lingerie in my basement I have no idea if I will ever be able to wear again. I have either been breastfeeding or pregnant or both for the last two years and a half. Pregnancy and nursing brassieres are pretty horrid. They serve two purposes: support and access. That’s it. Nowhere does it say they should be pretty or should make you feel something more than a feeding machine… sigh.
The amazing founder of this company, Mayana Geneviere thought otherwise. A woman who is giving it all, including her body, to a tiny human, should take something for herself. I finally took the plunge and bought a bra. OMG. The feel of lace, the look of lace, the sexyness of it all. I opened the box and wish I could open it fifty more times. It was so amazing. I put it on, cringing my teeth because maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t fit. But it did. and I could nurse my baby with it, and I could feel like the whole woman I lost somewhere between the fermentation of humans and the caring of them.
Isn’t it amazing what one piece of clothes can do for you? I used to say wear lingerie underneath the sweatpants. You are using it for you, not for anyone else. Feel sexy for yourself. Seduce yourself. Now I can do it again. It’s wonderful.
And here is the second story:
A few weeks ago I did something incredibly scary, brave and fun. With my brand new post-partum body I did a modeling gig. Truly. It was two and a half months after I had fermented my tiny human and then pushed it out of my glorious, puffed, rounded body, and I, Kelly, modeled.
I put on clothes that were not too wide, or loose, clothes that were not meant to hide my not so fit, not so tight, much more curvy and soft body, but show it off.
It was scary. It was F… scary. Especially since, even though I have gone through this before (with my first Dragon). I still expected my body to be perfect immediately after I pushed out my tiny human. I put myself through this ordeal because I needed to understand that my body IS PERFECT. It made life, it sustains life. Yes, it has changed, yes it is wider and softer and looser than it was a few years ago… but it is more perfect than it ever was.
And I needed clothes from this awesome store (local designers and locally made) and a photographer to show me what should have been beyond obvious. I am beautiful. I am attractive. I am still a woman (despite being a two time mom). I am sexual. I am enticing. I am me.
Now go and admire my pictures!
And while you are at it, what was the last very scary thing you did? How did you brave your way through? What did you learn?