#you – Relay shun ships

‘Born free, as free as the wind blows, as free as the grass grows, born free to follow your heart…...’ (song by Matt Monro)

I heard this song today for the first time in years. I used to watch the series, when I was a little girl. It was about an American couple living in Kenya who adopted a lioness called Elsa, and they basically protect her and other animals.

What occurred to me today was that, we are not really ‘born free’. Born innocent, yes, born pure yes, born without any pre-conceived ideas – tabula rasa, perhaps.

Unlike animals, who from birth, can basically stand on their own two feet and only seek their mothers aid for nourishment and sustenance, us humans depend on our mothers/caregivers for much more, in order to survive.

Over the weeks, months and years we are steered, guided, nurtured. We are told what to do, how to do it, when to do it. We are socialized. Taught how to conform, to abide by rules and regulations. We are born into a culture that will dictate our beliefs from early on. Born into a country that will dictate our language. Born into a family that will dictate our social status, initially. We can of course veer off that path and either rise above, spiral down or remain the same.

We become what we have assimilated over the years from all of our interactions, with all of our relationships, all of our roles, role models, and all of our experiences. Mix that with our own unique personality, our strengths, our weaknesses, our beliefs, our idiosyncratic ways and we become ‘someone’.

However, do we remain that someone? or can we morph into ‘one’ ‘me-one’. Do we, as we get older change our ways, change our beliefs, do our strengths ever become our weakness and our weakness become our strength? Do our roles define us. We all have more than one role. We do not merely exist in isolation.

Are we free to change? To shake off all that we believed to be true and real. Is it OK to challenge ourselves and evolve into someone else. Same face, same body, but different mindset.

Do we owe it to ourselves to shed one skin and welcome another? Should we feel bad if we choose ‘me’ exclusively, regardless of our threads and ties to anyone else and their expectation of us? Their view of us? Their idea of who we should be?

Is there a certain time in life when we can do this, or do we just dream of doing this? Should we encourage this and bid ‘adieu’ to our old self and our old set of hand me down beliefs, morals and expectations and welcome in who we are about to become.

Many times over our lifetime, I believe, we re-invent ourselves, one way or another, question ourselves, change our minds, our opinions, our expectations and standards. What seemed important once, becomes insignificant at another time. Dancing to someone else’s tune can become laborious, wearing, and grind us down.

How many of us wish to metamorphose, like the caterpillar and fly like the butterfly and be free? Live in the moment, no demands, no expectations, wipe the slate clean and start again, with fresh eyes. Unlearn everything and relearn at our own pace, dance to our own tune, assimilate our own beliefs and step into the world a new version, whether upgraded or downgraded. Above all, true to you.

Of course, this usually comes with age. Usually when we have less time in front of us than behind us. In our quest of searching for meaning, and seeking approval, we often lose ourselves, in the everyday mundane conformity of what is expected, and we deliver.

Sometimes, though, the delivery guy, not only needs a break, but needs to change course and break free…….

I’m getting fat. Not fat, fat exactly, but fatter than I was. Having said that, what do people consider fat?

I was always skinny. The skinny bitch. I didn’t think I was skinny, but I didn’t think I was fat. I was just me and my size was just my size. I was lean, yes but I didn’t think anything about it because, like I said, I was just me.

So now, I am still me, just a bigger version of me than I was, when I was younger, so, am I fat?

No, not really, though I do have a spare tyre, my upper arms are definitely bigger and softer, my thighs are bigger too and they wobble, they didn’t used to wobble. My ass, well let’s say, now I have an ass, so before I had a small ass, never the less, it was still an ass. My face is rounder and I have more than one chin. When I was the skinny bitch, I could, if I tried hard enough and put my face down towards my neck, make myself have more than one chin,

It is called skin, lean with pockets of fat cells in it and maybe some muscle. I used to have muscle, when I was the skinny bitch. I did lots of hand stands and cart wheels and other gymnastic tricks. I loved gymnastics at school. My friend and I were both good at it. We were the skinny bitches.

We remained the skinny bitches even after we had children without even trying.

I went even thinner after my first baby, all that breastfeeding. It gave her colic. I thought it was what I was eating, so in the end I ate very little. She still had colic. I put her on the bottle as I had to eat and something had to give. She took the bottle and the colic went, but the constipation came. She still screamed in pain.

It was a lose-lose situation for her, and a win lose for me. Win because I could now eat again, the cabbage, potatoes, salad cream etc. that everyone said was probably giving her colic. I lost because she was still screaming and I felt it was my fault for putting her on the bottle and the poor child was still in pain….

I started to get fat when I was in my early 40’s. Actually I think I started to change, ever so slightly, from my early 30’s, I think I gained about 7 pound from when I was in my teens. I didn’t try to gain these pounds, they just arrived, slowly and without much encouragement or notice from me. I was still a skinny bitch you see.

By my early 40’s I had gained another 7 pound. Still I think I looked pretty good in the mirror, even though, that is a whole stone in a 10-year period. I was beginning to ‘fill out’. I was also noticing that my skin was changing, slightly. I was getting fine lines and the elasticity was beginning to loosen I suppose. That’s ok, it does that with age.

By my early 50’s I had gained another 14 pound and from 50 to 55 another 7 pound. So from my teens I had gained two and a half stone and like they say, it crept up on me.

I am not blind. I could see my body changing shape. My face, rounder, my boobs fuller, my belly definitely fatter, my arms, my legs, my whole body. Still, I was me. I am not fat. I am fatter than my skinny bitch days, yes, but I am not fat. I don’t know when I will consider myself fat but I know this. Some people, thinner than me, will look at me and say that I am fat.

Some people, bigger than me, will look at me and say that I am skinny.

I will say, I have more fat on me than when I was skinny, but, I am still me and I am happy with who I am. Like my skin that is ageing, my hair that is greying, my body is changing as it naturally does with age.

I am glad to be ageing, it means that I am alive and that I can chose, every day, what I do with my day. I can choose to look in the mirror and say ‘hey, you are fifty something and still fabulous’ or I could criticise how I look and feel bad about myself. I chose the former not the latter.

The moral of this story is, just because you are the size that you are, you have to decide whether or not, you are happy with you. So long as you are healthy and have a healthy view of yourself in your own mind and can embrace your own body, wobbly bits and all, or bones and all, don’t let it consume you.

Other people will always have their opinions, it’s either colic or constipation, skinny bitch or fatty. You decide, yourself, what label you want to put on you……

Tag: #you

Who are you?

Fatty and Skinny….