A Beautiful Work In Progress

by Mirna Valerio

I’d signed up for this, so I wasn’t going to complain about it.

the reins were handed to the dominant loud talkers who needed to verbalize their ideas first. They were quick and efficient with their decision making, and I was not. These “team-building” activities only reinforced this. I was tired of relearning who was a leader and who was not. We all knew who they were, so why bother? We deferred naturally to those kids anyway.

started hate-reading it. I despised the book from the first page, but unfortunately I was at a point in my life in which finishing what I started reading was an absolute necessity. I’ve become wiser since then.

(I was determined to raise a swimmer, especially as a black parent, because I didn’t want my son to be another drowning statistic of black and Hispanic people who don’t know how to swim.)

I hadn’t noticed that in my quest to be different, in my quest to not be the martyr that all the women in my family seemed to be, I had quickly become just that.

Nobody ever achieved anything epic without doing the requisite work, even if the work itself is humdrum, boring, run-of-the-mill kind of work.

it wasn’t going to be easy but just a little farther every day really does make the difference.

Instead of being ashamed of doing what you do or being what you are, I ask two important questions: Why not celebrate it? Why not be proud of the fact that the body you are in can do great things?

Even though many black women enjoy a certain level of comfort in the body-type arena, there is more and more pressure to conform to societal standards of beauty, which necessitate adhering to dominant weight and thinness standards too.

Everyone knows what is best for fat people, and everyone thinks they can solve our “problem” with some quick-fix pill diet, or seven-minute workout, or a vile-tasting shake. According to them, clearly all obesity stems from a lack of morality and discipline, and an obsession with food.

I have a diverse diet that includes cuisines from all around the world. Do I enjoy the occasional fast-food break? Yes. Do I make healthful meals at home with a variety of fruits and vegetables? Yes. Am I knowledgeable about basic nutrition concepts? Yes. Do I overindulge at times? Absolutely. But despite what many think, I’m not obsessed with food as my body size and shape may suggest. A more important question is, why are people so concerned?

In the contemporary United States, being heavy is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, sloth, and/or stupidity, while slenderness is taken as the embodiment of virtue.

A deep-seated cultural belief in self-reliance makes body size—like wealth—especially likely to be regarded as being under personal control and as reflecting one’s moral fiber.

If we were to break it down to its simplest form, body positivity encompasses the idea that “all bodies are good bodies.”

We have a right to love our bodies as they are, even if they aren’t aesthetically pleasing to others.

Body size, although important in some respects, is the only determining factor in a person’s health. If it were only that easy. Look at a person who is fat. What do you know about his or her health, his or her lifestyle? Unless you know them, you don’t know. You have no clue.

And just like that—and every other time I’ve let negative energy take over my thoughts on the trail—I face-planted.

I am complex. I am more than what my body suggests to others visually.