On the way to a field trip during February break, I caught some of my students on the bus giggling to each other saying that I have chubby arms. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been so self conscious about them. I’ve always been athletic, having been in gymnastics since I was super young, and I find myself often regretting it because I think it was the gymnastics that shaped my body from a young age to have broad shoulders and bulky arms. I do like that it made me strong, and that I can do hella cool flips that double as a pretty cool party trick, but I could totally do without the bulky part. Shopping for clothes has always been a nightmare. Shirts are almost AWAYS to tight up by my shoulders/arms, so much so that I've split so many shirts just by hugging someone or trying to pull them off. Even though the rest of the shirt fits fine, I always have to go up a size if I want to prevent that from happening. And don't get me started on dresses! Why is it that it's so damn hard to find a dress for that flatters an athletic build?! I remember posting photos of my husband's homecoming from deployment, and since it was a big day and I wanted to look nice, I wore a dress. There's this one picture taken from behind me that shows this incredibly emotional moment where I'm holding up his homecoming sign as I caught my first glimpse of the busses pulling in, and my mother commented on it about my back/shoulder muscles. "Holy muscles," she commented. I know she meant it to be something nice, but I was so upset that this photo taken that was supposed to focus on the reunion of my husband and I, was so easily focused on my damn back. I still think I look like a dude in a dress when looking at that picture, and that sucks to have that take away from that memory. I've always thought sleeveless tops always make me look fatter than I actually am because my huge arms become the focal point. That's actually what I was wearing that day on the bus-- a sleeveless top. Ironically, I remember trying on outfits in the morning getting ready for work that day and actually feeling pretty good about how I looked, specifically because I thought my arms looked slimmer than usual. I attributed that to having not done any lifting in over a year, and the cardio I'd been doing specifically trying to loose inches/muscle mass. But then I heard those words. And I know they're just asshole kids, but I actually had to fight back tears until I got out of work and just let myself crumble into an emotional ball of tears in my idling car before I went home. I feel like they just vocalized what I already think everyone thinks about when they see me, and it was just a pretty big blow because I always try to tell myself I'm being paranoid and nobody actually thinks that. So, thinking about those kids and having what they said that day stuck in my mind for the past couple weeks, this morning I was thinking about hitting the gym, hard. Getting ready to go, I was looking myself up and down in the mirror, taking a mental "before" picture, trying to think up the best way to muscle atrophy. Or maybe I would just hit the stair master for like two hours every day like I hear all the skinny-minnies do. But as I was looking myself up and down, I didn't see myself as "fat" or "chubby," I saw myself as strong. I saw years of work-- countless back-handsprings and pull ups and squats and sweat. And I know none of that would have been possible without this body. I thought about when my husband and I will try to have a baby, how my body is going to continue to change then, and for the rest of my life, how these arms will carry my babies as they grow, and how miraculous all of that actually is. I thought about woman's day. Who the FUCK cares or gets to determine what MY body should look like in order to be socially acceptable or determined beautiful. Eff that, eff those kids comments, and eff that persistent little voice in the back of my mind constantly tells myself that I am somehow "less than." Because I am not. Anyways, I'll probably still go to the gym, but I'm going to go and do what my body is built for, and feel like a bad ass strong woman doing it.
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