40
I wrote this on the last day of 2023, which was the year I turned 40. TW: topics include body image, motherhood and aging.
The weight of holiday abundance sits heavily on her bones. Her curves feel curvier, her breasts heavier, her arms saggier, her belly softer. She looks in the mirror and remembers a time when she could control the growth of her proportions with ease. Well, never with ease, but it was certainly easier than it is now. At 40. Memories appear on her phone of a time not long ago, But to her, It seems like a different body ago. Before children, before life got busy. A time when sleep and time were hers to wield And manipulate as she needed And yet, she still measured her worth by her size. She wishes she could shake that 30-years-young body and say: You are beautiful. Enjoy this life now. She wishes she could stand next to that 20-years-young body and show her all the ways that she is perfect. And she wishes she could hug that 10-years-young body and tell her she will always be enough. She looks in the mirror, Tracing her hands over new curves, new sags, new dimples. Her ancestors speak through her curves and her skin and her hair and her eyes. Generations of survivors have passed down their strengths to her. Just as she will do for her ancestors. And that's already begun. She looks at her daughters and sees her own body reflected back at her. There is awe in that, but also worry. Worry for what is to come for them. Worry that they will see their bodies as she has seen hers for 40 years. As her mother had taught her. But she is determined to change. To break the cycle. She is trying. Trying to appreciate this body. It's not new. It has done all the things that have brought her to this moment. She is trying to stop punishing it For not rising to the impossible standards set And passed down to her - unwillingly. She is trying to show her daughters The love she never got. But it is hard. When she still doesn't love herself just yet. But still, She holds the weight of it all. And she tries.
