Fully Exposed

I’m thirty pounds heavier than I’ve ever been in my life. That puts me squarely in overweight territory. I know this fact, but I am having a hard time changing my ways and shedding the pounds. I spent my first thirty eight years as a thin person, so I sometimes erroneously believe that I am still thin…until I see photos of myself. This is why I am very intentional when I post selfies. At least a hundred pictures are deleted, filters applied, angles perfected, and lighting ideal before you see a pic of me on social media.

I loathe being in a swimsuit, so I almost never put one on. When my children swim, I am sitting on the sidelines, full make-up and hair, wearing black so I look slightly thinner. My kids ask me to swim. But I always say no. I can’t handle that people are looking at my body and judging my care of it. Swimsuits don’t hide my emotional eating binges.

But I decided that yesterday would be different. I decided that instead of watching my life play out in front of me, that I wanted to be part of it. Step one was leaving the make up off. Since pregnancy, my skin tone consists of fourteen different shades. I have scars, wrinkles, and freckles. I work very hard to cover these on a daily basis. But I left my face clean for the water adventures. Next, I donned the swimsuit that covered the most of my dimpled, fair skin, and left my hair undone as I headed to the lake with my kids.

The day was blissful! I was CONSTANTLY aware of my lack of protective layers, but I kept focusing on the joy in my children’ faces and proceeded forward with jumping off the dock, swimming, playing water tag, and kissing the faces of my little ones. At the end of the day, they commented multiple times that they had fun with me. Not once did they mention my extra pounds or lack of skin tone consistency. Instead, they teased me about my form while jumping into the water and laughed when I slipped off the raft. 

Life is so very short. As I played nervously in the lake, with my imperfections on display, I was aware that this time is a gift. I will never again have the Fourth of July 2018. So I’m grateful that we built these memories. What about you? Do you ever struggle this way? How do you get past it? Does it keep you from living your life? I’d love to hear your stories and spend some time encouraging each other.