work it, girl

I have poop on my shirt front. There are green-yellow marks on my left shoulder and I just pulled a bit of green-yellow crust off my collar. Yes, it was one of those mornings: it took a while to get dressed and then my child's bodily functions laid claim to the outfit I'd finally scrounged. I couldn't be bothered to change, already running 15 minutes late to get out the door, so through today I will attend meetings and eat my lunch knowing that there is feces on my shirt. And it is fine.

I can be as vain the the next person, but motherhood has stripped down a lot of those kind of concerns. Thank God. I still like to look "put together," whatever that means, and I still wash my hair quite regularly. I even shave sometimes. Of course, I still feel self-conscious sometimes too. Just a couple weeks ago we drove up to a party and I complained "I'm wearing the wrong thing- I don't feel comfortable."

But, how lame is that!? That my dress would determine my comfort? Despite whatever I was wearing, you know what else I had in tow? My health. A glorious, 15 month old babe with high-functioning bowels. A man who calls me babe and crawls around on the floor with our pets, baby, niece and nephews (occasionally all at once).

I guess what I'm trying to say- and this is for me, to me!, as always- is that I don't think the worst thing to happen in life would be for me to lose my figure or have a blemish at an inopportune time. I want to remember this if and when I fret over an ensemble or, God forbid, an expanding waistline. I want to remember contentment and identity and priorities, because for me exercise and diet can too easily skew to be about something other than deep, soul-seated health, and then its not healthy at all.

I have a friend who is working through a break up. She shared that she woke up one morning this week admitting to herself a hope that this man would have loved her so much as to not let her go. Then, in short order, she realized she needs to love herself that much and in so doing fend off losing herself in this mourning.

Yes. That's it exactly. Can we love ourselves, please? The good book tells us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and I think we too often forget the ourselves bit. We can't love others if we're all jacked up with self-doubt and distaste.

Kimberly, love yourself- your physical body, your achey mom heart, your anxious tendencies and abrasive passions. Love 'em. This is what you've got to work with, so work it girl. 

PS: Who knew Chaplin was such a deep guy? Not I. You can read his whole piece about self-love, written on this 70th birthday, here.