Body Image and other Random Thoughts

[Melody]

Hey Mel, I'll play tennis with you... haven't swung a racket in years (wondering if mine will still work?) but I'm game. A few times meeting up to knock them around then before you know it we'll be able to have 'matches'.

Works for me. I really loved playing. When I was down or frustrated I'd hit the courts to work out... or at least exhaust myself where it wouldn't hurt any more.

As to body image... I don't know. I never got sucked into the whole "gotta look this way" hyped by magazines.

I never got sucked into trying what the magazines hyped... but I'd get depressed by the fact I wasn't looking that way. Luckily I'm mostly over that sort of thing but at times it does come back.

[quote=spazzdog]I never learned to apply makeup... if I had to go to a fancy thing I'd have someone do it for me.[quote]

heh. I can apply makeup... but I *suck* So I just go without. And like you I have someone else do it for me... usually a salon or somesuch.

You should all know that you are beautiful as you are and while you worry or obsess abt a part or parts you don't like, there's someone standing across the way thinking you're the most beautiful woman they've ever seen.

I know for me it's hard. It's the years of just really poor self-esteem. Getting called whale jokes as a kid didn't really help either.

Mel, you make me think of Jayne Williams, who wrote a book called Slow Fat Triathlete. the subtitle is "Live your athletic dreams in the body you have now." Her website is www.slowfattriathlete.com Her message, like yours, is really clear: Get out there and do what you love to do. I am glad that cycling is working for you. I think Jayne is 5'10", too. Her story about trying on a wetsuit for the first time is hilarious. I re-read it before I tried on my own first wetsuit, because the internal messages about not looking like an athlete were so strong. I think I've finally got it that an athlete is some one who does athletic stuff. And you've been an athlete from the git-go, it sounds like to me.

Take care, Lise

Lise thank you for the link. I just went over and read the wetsuit section and just about spewed my coffee. Her writing style is very very humorous. I also think that it's pretty darned cool that she lives in the same town that I do! (At least according to the bio)

I'm going to have to go pick up a copy of her book and read it.

I have to say that I never really felt like an athlete growing up. Athletes were those fit, trim jocks in high school. I was very much one of the non-in crowd. Quiet, shy, a nerd and a bookworm. Tennis was just something I enjoyed and was ok at.

Mel