Big, and Strong

I just read Why I Don't Diet - An Ode to My Father by Tiffany at More Cabaret.  She describes the destructive pursuit of thinness that diminished her father from the almost legendary giant he once was.  I think about this a lot.  I, too, have allowed myself to be taught that my form is not healthy, not small enough, takes up too much space.  And it is true that some aspects of my body were unhealthy, such as my high triglycerides, but my blood pressure has always been good and I had always been strong.  My health problems were not universally size related and would not all be fixed by simply getting smaller.

Despite understanding that I was not automatically unhealthy because of my size, I still rejected it as an acceptable way to look.  I loved being tall and had no wish to be petite, but I wished to be lean, sinuous, even willowy.  Without understanding what it would have cost, I would have traded my strength for slender elegance.  Luckily, I wasn't offered that deal.  I am far from elegant, but that's okay with me now.

I am still learning, through my husband's eyes, to recognize that this largeness I occupy can be beautiful and attractive.  It has always been such a struggle to accept that someone can find me sexy, without adding that little "because he already loves me" at the end of the thought.  But I work on it, because I don't want my daughters to think I'm not beautiful, to think that I myself don't think I'm beautiful.  

Perhaps what I've gone through these past couple of years have made this a little easier for me.  Of course there were times I bitterly complained that if I were only smaller, it wouldn't take so much help to move me, so much equipment to help me rehabilitate my body.  There's nothing like being lifted in a crane to point out to you that no two nurses, male or female, can pick you up.  

But with my size came my strength.  Every once in a while I realize, somewhat startled, that if I was not the size I was at the beginning of this cancer/spinal cord injury mess, what would be left of me now?  My legs wasted considerably when I was in the hospital, it was amazing how fast the muscle fled from beneath my skin.  My thighs were thinner, my calves much thinner.  And yet they didn't look any more appealing to me.  Without my strength, my muscles, they didn't look sexier because they were skinny.  They looked puny, old, and alien, like they didn't belong to my great big body that had always been strong.  

The tale of Tiffany's father is a sad one, but the fact that his daughter has not embraced his tragic thinking is an inspiring, reaffirming high note in this story.  I want to reject the notion that I should be less as confidently as she does.