26 years

I have my high school reunion coming up. It will be 26 years since I have seen many of my classmates. 26 years. Twenty six years. That's legal. That's a masters under your belt. That for many is already newly wed status or young family, for others it's career, happy hour and creating a life... 26 years...That's hard time......The impact of the number came to dawn on me as I stood topless in a dressing room of a bra shop staring at my frazzled image and my directionally challenged breasts. How the hell did 26 years pass me by that quickly? I stare harder....I have been out of breath and out of sorts lately. I suppose much of it stems from my innate response to cure all that ails with rich decadent foods and cocktails like a Jewish Mother would lovingly ladle and dole out homemade chicken soup...but it's catching up to me, and not in a good way...My deep appreciation and loyalty to a sedentary life has not helped either....and it's hard to find the motivation to do something you really don't enjoy doing...Lately, putting on my pants is a workout session all it's own....Squatting, really? Unless I'm in a public restroom, it's not something I'm inspired to do....But, here I am in front of the mirror looking at evidence A, B, C and DD's, knowing full well something needs to change. I stand sideways for further inspection, and suck everything in...nothing happens....use to be, 26 years ago, 20 years ago, 9 years ago, I sucked in my gut and I would be lifted...my posture would change, my rib cage would reveal itself, my shoulders would go back and everything would fall into place....Now, nothing moves....not even a little twitch...oops....

So I tuck and fold and get set to pay the bill. I stand there calculating the monetary costs...joking I say "wow, that comes out to $40 a breast", and Celia and I giggle.....but the cost is far more substantial. I think of how I am feeling lately. How unbelievably tired I am. I think of many of my good friends who are rounder, older, wiser for the most part, but depleted and lost in the same way I am. I think of the changes we are in the midst of, the shifting of the earth, the shifting within our lives, the recession, the insecurities, the transitions that leave us now preparing to take care of our parents, while still raising our children...and the images I have stored away in my mind believing somehow that perfection had to look a certain way...peaceful, orderly, toned, secure....not as lived in as my home is, not as lived in as my body has become.....but then, it's lived in. And that is the key. While esthetically we know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the reality is that ageism, and weight discrimination is embraced. I know health is the most important thing we have, and I do have to begin to take care of myself. I know in my case the extra weight affects my heart. But lets be honest, who's expectations are we trying to live up to here? And just how much weight does that carry in our collective psyche? So easy to say, why care about what anyone else thinks but you, when your thoughts are somewhat influenced by others....Feel valued? Feel beautiful? Feel whole?

Which brings me back to my relocated ladies and my search for undergarments that will treat my extra flesh with tenderness instead of encased ground meat...In the midst of the tragedy of Japan, everything falls short and seems so ridiculously silly....In the midst of lives being washed away in seconds, everything seems so small....However, how we feel about ourselves, and the way we live our daily lives is important. And here, 26 years later, in the middle of catastrophic natural disasters, and uncertain times, somewhere in my 43 year old being is an 18 year old girl looking forward to seeing her old friends, suspended in retrospect and reconnection...In hopefully something that fits.....The 80's are back .......everything old is new again......

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