Yesterday was my baby boys 39th birthday. ( I cant possibly have a child that age, I'm just NOT that old, lol.) Anyway, I don't have much money right now and I cant make him the traditional bd gift that I used to do, which was homemade roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy. A side of broccoli with cheese. Cant ship that for sure. And so I remembered a thing I did for my grand daughters 18th bd and I made a picture album of her life on FB. So yesterday I decided to do the same for my son.
I went thru all my photo boxes pulling out photos I liked or thought he would. Sadly my printer/scanner I think is dying and it took me well over an hr to scan these photos. I even ended up pulling some out and doing less. In the end there were 27 in the album which I thought was wild since his bd is on the 27th too. Anyway, I was in some of these photos and I saw many in the boxes of course of me. But something about my perspective has changed and its weird.
All thru my marriage my ex was verbally abusive. He wanted a skinny wife and said nasty things about my weight all the time. Now mind you after I had my daughter I weighed only 116lbs. And when I had my son, he made me get on the scale in the hospital to see how much I gained. I was 135 then. sigh......sure wish I was either one of those now. But he made me always feel fat and ugly. What a terrible thing to do to someone and I was so young and gullible too.
I'm not thin now and I wish I was thinner. But working out doesn't do much for me and diets don't either. Only thing ever worked was low carb and weight lifting. I'm a short person but have always had a lg. frame. My ex would laugh at me when I said that tho. But there's a way to measure for that and I had that done. So I KNOW I have a lg. frame, big shoulders, big hips, lg. calves even when thin. But HE just refused to hear that. In HIS mind I was fat , fat ,fat all the time.
It wasn't till we were watching tv one day and a girl in a bikini came on the screen. She was anorexic looking , ribs and hipbones protruding. It was ugly. But HE thought she was beautiful! I was stunned, then sickened and then I realized all this time, it wasn't me that was the problem, it was him and what he sees. But this affected me for all the 30+ yrs I was with him.
And then I left and had to find out who I was. And I was much heavier and felt ugly. But I put myself out there to date and found out other men didn't think that. They loved me, thought I was gorgeous. I had lots of dates. And slowly my confidence came back. I started to like who I was again but it took me awhile to find out who that was.
And then this man who said those things to me my whole life, showed up at my grand child's HS graduation.....fat! In fact when he walked in at first I wasn't sure who it was. He is obese now. I laughed at the absurdity of it and my first thought was.....omg hes the Staypuff marshmallow man now. Karma and all that.......
Now Ive put on more weight and I don't like it but my guy now , loves the real me. And while he may not like that, he does love me and that's a good thing. But my own perspective after looking at those photos again has changed too. I see the photos and I know its me.... and yet its not. I look at that woman and I now see how pretty she really was. I had legs! And even heavier, I was pretty. I was always dressed nice and wore makeup. I was not a slob. And yet he never saw that.
And now me seeing ME from the ME who I am now....amazes me. Those same pictures used to bug me. I felt ugly in them, saw ugly and fat. I saw with HIS eyes, not my own. And now its weird , like I'm detached from that life and yet its mine. That's me in those photos. The real me I never saw all those yrs. How sad so much time was wasted thinking and feeling I was NOT enough. How sad how some people treat others, it has to stop.
We are all Children of God, we are all beautiful, no matter what our size or shape.
We are miracles....
Yes, we are miracles.
ReplyDeleteYou had a great figure in that photo! He was nuts.
It can be awful how our worst thoughts about ourselves come from outside us. Its liberating when those voices are gone.
Have a lovely rest of the day.
Hey pretty lady, it sounds like you ended up with the right man afterall. Which, by the way I have my fingers crossed that he gets that job you mentioned in your more recent post. ~Lili
ReplyDeleteYou are a treasure, my friend. Your man knows it and he sees the 'real' you. What a gift to your heart!
ReplyDelete~Adrienne~