A HAPPY MEDIUM
Most women struggle with body image issues at some point during their life. It could be during the awkward teen years where nothing seems to look right, college days where we try to dispel the myth of the freshmen fifteen or some point beyond into our adult years when we learn that peer pressure never really goes away. For me it started as a pre-teen when I got the first hint from others, primarily of the male persuasion, that I was too skinny. Too skinny, today that term seems ridiculous as I stare at magazine ads and television commercials where people are doing whatever they can to lose those extra 5 lbs. One can never been too skinny. Oh wait, that’s not true. It has to exist because just like those days of yesteryear I have again returned to that place of too skinny. A label I now place on myself after careful examination and reflection; mirror reflection. But even as I type this I have to wonder if I’m not appreciating my newfound slimness. Hmmm. Let’s see.
It would be fair of me to say that for the majority of my life I’ve had no problem maintaining a slim waistline. Eat as I might, the pounds never stuck. During those years I took great advantage of it; relishing cakes, pies and anything –dare I say – chocolate! But somewhere around my late twenties, which coincidentally is when I got married, my body began to laugh at me. It teased and taunted me, not with words but with pounds. All those lovely morsels downed before the quarter-century mark now seemed to make their way to my hips and thighs and other places which shall remain nameless. And there they sat, like a bump on log. But no worries, I thought. For since I was at one point too skinny perhaps I was finally making my way around or rather a-round to being just right. Just right was just fine, in the beginning. It was when I returned home just after getting married and graduating that just right began its slow infringement on my psyche. Curves. They’re part of what separate men from their more lovely counterparts. The lack of them in my too skinny days made me appreciate them all the more in my just right days. A pair of pants here and pencil skirt there; things were really coming together. Until they came apart, literally. So comfortable was I in my new frame that I neglected to notice how the numbers on the scale kept inching and inching upward, to the point of no return. Hmmm, somehow my just right frame was sliding closer and closer into the abyss of too much. And once I got there, it seemed there was no turning back. I hated pictures for they told the obvious truth with no holds barred. I loathed clothes shopping as it forced me to come to terms with terms like extra-large and plus-size. Never once, really believing I was either.
How could I have let this happen? I thought. Somewhere along the way I got the impression that being too much really wasn’t that bad. And though I was not happy in my too skinny days they seemed a bit more satisfying than my too much days. Yo-yoing back and forth between the two was not good for me, physically or mentally. Though to be fair, it was really more of a slow progression than a fluctuation. What I needed, I reasoned, was a point at which I could be happy with myself while being neither too skinny nor too much. I needed a happy medium. Medium – it’s between two extremes, the point that allows for equal flexibility in either direction. It’s the compromise that two parties seek that will satisfy both. Medium, is my new goal – one that will satisfy my inner too skinny but not allowing too much to rear its ugly face Medium, it’s a desirable second place between small and large and gives me the peace of mind to know that I have room to grow or not.