Size still Matters

There are so many things about being a woman which I love, but also that pisses me off. Lack of salary equality, the fact that aggressive women seem bitchy vs. the same MAN who is deemed decisive instead...that women should or do feel “guilty” about having a job vs. feeling the need to be the MOM all the time, the focus on looks and probably the biggest, yet most meaningless issue is the greater society’s focus on WEIGHT and looking “hot.”

That being said, and despite my hatred of it, I do see my own blatantly perceived difference with weight issues, and I won’t deny it. I know what it was like to be a pleasingly plump (curvy) woman for years, yet liked even more, what it felt to finally reach a “hot weight.” There, I said it and I miss it. I enjoyed looking like a hot older woman.

Inside, I also hate the fact that I could NOT maintain that weight despite my brains. I secretly dislike seeing women my age who look really, really god for their age. I diss them (in my mind) and wonder if they ever eat or just have that impossibly 100 mph metabolism that allows them to actually put more than one morsel in their mouth, just to maintain a size 1 or 3, or even zero. I’m sorry, nobody can maintain that size without NOT eating or exercising 24 hours a day. Could I live such a spartan life that I might be able to do that or are these women just naturally this thin?

I suppose that some are and have been all their lives…but I highly doubt that most of the  Suzy Socialites are THAT thin without working HARD at it and ignoring all the crudités passed her way. Or that the excessive jogging doesn’t play a part in maintaining that “oh so important” zero size.

I’ve been at my own lows – size 4s following average size 10s. Ahhh. I loved it, but couldn’t maintain it for more than a couple of years. I didn’t eat, I will admit that, but it was the resultant of stress that I didn’t want. I don’t have that anxiety anymore so I’m pretty normally weighted now, a weight that is not “hot.”

It’s a “respectable” weight for my age, but still not the weight which society reminds us is considered attractive anymore. And I hate that. I despise that society has placed upon us weights or looks that aren’t healthy and more importantly, I don’t like the fact that in order for me to maintain these standards, I have to not eat for days and run many more miles for weeks. To me, that’s not living and much harder work that I’m willing, or likely physically prepared to do.

I don’t want to be a slave to what I eat or what I weigh. I do have pretty healthy eating habits and exercise daily but also enjoy not caring about the occasional splurge. I also hate the fact that I’m my own worst critic and care about what people think about me not being the “hottie” that I SHOULD be. At almost 50, I could be working hard to reach society’s expectation that it’s better to look a 30ish thin, and not “fat” than it is to be the expected 50ish. I should be one of those women who looks GREAT for her age rather than passably one of those “but you have such a pretty face” type of people. Because, I’ve had that a lot over the course of my life.

I’ve faced the facts that I will hear THAT comment more than the “you’re too skinny” acknowledgements. Sad thing is, I sometimes feel that the skinny comments would mean more to me than who I AM….not the thin one. Someone not so skinny, hoping to be so and regretting that I wish I were.

Why can’t I be a craggly-faced, flabby-ish  Harrison Ford type of person who still commands lead roles? Oh wait. I can’t. I’m just a post-menopausal women surrounded by a world who thinks we aren’t that great because we don’t fit the mold of physical perfection. Screw that. And yet I still strive to meet those unrealistic, societal expectations.