body image

15 and I wear the same size pants, though not really tops (even though she has been known to steal some of mine--if she thinks they would look better on her, and of course she is really helping me out from not wearing clothes a 15 year old would wear). At the beginning of the year, I told her I wasn't buying her any new clothes unless she cleaned her closet out of clothes that she wasn't wearing, for whatever reason. I didn't tell her it had to be a good reason.

So, the result was that I inherited a pair of perfectly good tan pants that she wore last year when she was still wearing uniforms at the junior high. I suspect it's just the getting rid of the uniform clothes thing. I put them on and they fit me just fine. Except that I think my legs look a little big in them, and they're rather form-fitting on the backside. Not too tight, really. Just, well, close.

I have noticed all this week that when 15 wears a pair of pants in the exact same size, I look at her, and think--she is very thin. But when I put on those same pair of pants (literally now in this case) and look at myself in them, I look at all the parts that for one reason or another aren't quite perfect. I think about the fact that I have stretching scars from multiple pregnancies, and some pooch around my waist. My legs, as I said, feel "big." I know they're not fat. I know they're muscular. But I am still self-conscious about them.

At the Half Ironman this year, I got hot enough that I took off my tank about halfway through the run and finished in my bra. I waited until the photos came out, so I could compare them to the other women (mostly in their 20s) who were daring enough to wear bras and shorts instead of tanks and shorts. I decided I did not look good. Embarrassingly not good. Jiggly and striped with scars. I did not buy those photos and swore I would never take off my tank in a race again, no matter how hot I got. I had to protect the spectators.

But in the back of my mind, I have been thinking about why I am doing this. I do not actually think I need to lose weight. I know that most of my friends tell me that I'm not allowed to talk about body image issues because whatever I have doesn't even count as a body image issue. So why do I obsess over this? I am one of those people whose main goal in life is to never go on a diet. I hate counting calories. And also, I don't care that much about image in the first place. I am perfectly happy to go around without makeup on, every day, for pictures and everything. I get frustrated when I feel like people focus on the outer and not the inner, which is what really matters.

Who is in my head, telling me I am still fat? I guess it is the same person in the head of anorexics and pretty much all of us, reminding us we will never have the perfect body, because the perfect body is fake, painted on and manipulated in photoshop. I know that I have nowhere near the problem that most people have, telling that voice to shut up. But what astonishes me is that it never goes away. After 40 years, it still whispers clearly anytime I look in the mirror.