love in our summer skin - Pt. 1

As a teenage girl, I spend a lot of time being told how much I should hate my body. Not just the media (yeah, ok I'll lay off for a second... that's a whole other blog post), but also by my peers. Loving your body just isn't cool. I remember one scene in Mean Girls, the first time the new girl, Cady, hangs out with the Plastics. Everyone is hanging out in the classic teen girl bedroom, and suddenly, as if a sudden alarm has gone off, all the girls congregate in front of the mirror and start pointing out their flaws. "My hair is totally wierd", "I have man shoulders", "My nailbeds suck"; the three girls completely pick apart their bodies. When Cady doesn't join in, they all prompt her to do so. That scene, though short, was one of the most true to life, because this happens all the time. Anywhere girls are hanging out this will happen. One girl starts with "I am so bloated today." and soon everyone else joins in. And not only do they join in, but they deny the other's problems ("You're so thin! What are you talking about?"). This may sound like a good thing, but really it is a put down. Your thing isn't as bad as my thing. My thing is worse. You aren't good enough at being unnattractive. I deserve more pity. On and on and on.

The inevitable result of this is that girls hate their naked bodies. Sure, we prance around in the changerooms after gym class grade 7, but only long enough to show the other girls that we can suck in our guts and rock our new training bras. In the changerooms at the Y we stare (without staring) at the old women who let it all hang out in the showers. How can they do this? we wonder, How can they stand to let people see... everything? And, uh, they sag like, a lot. Like, omg. How can they do it? How can they stand themselves? We scoff, we roll our eyes, we even giggle some, but there isn't one of us who doesn't envies the way they are totally comfortable in their own skin.

Me and my body have had our ups and downs, emotionally, and, well, physically. I remember from the time I was in fifth grade and probably even before, standing naked in front of my bedroom mirror, sucking in my stomach. Loves: lips, feet, legs, back. Less than love: stubby fingers, round cheeks, squinty eyes, let's-not-even-talk-about-them breasts, and, of course, the stomach. Number one enemy of the state. I was always kind of one of the chubbier girls in the class. "Puppy fat", it was always called, but I never got that. Puppies = cute. My stomach... not so much.

I never really dealt with my body-hate, my body dealt with it for me. Two things happenned: first, I grew. I stretched out, my weight redistributed itself and people started saying "Oh my goodness! Evey, you're so thin!". The other thing that happenned was that I joined rugby and spent the run-up to swimsuit season running up and down a field 2 hours a day, 4 days a week. It was going good. Since then my weight has been up and down (more up than down lately), which is totally normal. I'm not one of the thinnest girls in my class, but I'm not overweight, and I'm hoping that one day I can accept that.