I’ve been thinking a lot about body image and clothing lately. I don’t know why I started thinking about this, but it’s just one of those things that’s come up a lot for me in the past few weeks.
Oh wait, I know what got me started thinking about this. I have three different “wardrobes” going: the pre-maternity, the maternity and the in-between. All of these clothes and I don’t like any of them because none of them fit. I’m sick of waiting around to see what I’m going to look like in a few months and then figure out what clothes I can fit in then.
I want to feel good in my clothes right now.
Because I’ve finally realized that I am never going back to the body I had before.
There, I said it. I admitted it. Sure, I look pretty similar to how I did before having kids. My overall shape is what it is. But I had three kids in the last 5 years! Almost as soon as I was done nursing one, I was pregnant with another one. I could tell myself I didn’t know what my body would look like at the end. Now, I’m realizing that when people talk about their bodies changing as they get older, they’re talking to me.
Our bodies don’t stop changing when we turn 16 or 20!
We don’t look like college students forever 🙁 Our bodies continue to change. I thought that since I was pretty much the same size, I would eventually get back to looking like I did before. I won’t. My body now is not like what it was when I was in college.
I look at these capsule wardrobes of 35 items and wish I had that many things in my closet that I wanted to wear! But decluttering isn’t going to help get me there.
I’ve already done that with what I have. I need new things. But I don’t want to buy a bunch of stuff because I don’t like buying stuff. And I know that I’m not great at buying things I really love. So what do I do?
I had already looked into having a stylist help me. Actually, I told my husband that was what I wanted for Christmas, so he looked into that for me. Didn’t happen. (Not his fault.) So now I’m back to looking at capsule wardrobes.
That hasn’t been going great either though. Oh, I should have 3 t-shirts? Great! No wait, not great. I just spent an hour on nordstrom and five other websites and have no idea if any of the things I think I want will actually work for me and the things I really want aren’t available…
All I end up doing is wasting time!
But I didn’t mean for this to be about shopping. I meant for it to be about accepting ourselves as we are now. Are you hanging onto a bunch of clothes because of what you might someday look like? Have you faced facts that your body will necessarily change as you age and accepted what you look like now?
Am I just slow on the uptake here or are we all striving to be something we’re not?
It’s hard for me to realize that I’m acting this way because I really hate that so many women have bad body images. It’s hard enough to be a woman, why beat ourselves up over the way our bodies look?!? We can’t (and shouldn’t) all look alike.
I really believe that we are beautiful because of who we are.
I believe this more than ever now that I’m a mom. I will always think my daughters are beautiful. Always. Because I know and love them. I would go so far as to say my mom feels the same about me. I am beautiful the way I am now and I am worth having clothes that make me feel good. It sounds kind of ridiculous to say but at the same time brings a little tear to my eye.
I want to raise girls that don’t hate their bodies or wish they looked different, and the best way I can do that is to lead by example. Because here’s the thing. I don’t hate my body. Sometimes I get a little nostalgic, but what I really hate is women feeling bad about themselves for no reason.
So, now I know what I need to do this weekend. Free myself of all those clothes I’ve been keeping around in case I ever become the me from 6 years ago. What about you?
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