Almost every morning, I check an application on Facebook called Message from God. I know, it’s kind of silly, but some days, whatever comes up really does give me something to think about, and quite often, it deals with something I have been thinking about or struggling with anyway, which makes me wonder if God really does have some really sweet deal worked out with Facebook. Hang on…don’t call the men in white coats just yet…I’m joking about that! But it is a little freaky to me how it works out sometimes.
This morning, I read this when I clicked on “See your Message from God:
”God wants you to know that you do not see things as they are. You see them as you are. When you look, you see reflections of your being. When you listen, you hear echoes of yourself. If you don't like something about what you see and hear, no point in smashing the mirror, change who you are becoming."This made me do a double take for a couple of reasons, but I’m only going to talk about one of them. Or maybe 2. No more than 3.
I promise.
Yesterday, my cousins and aunts and I had a get-together to celebrate my wonderful Aunt Chris’s 60th birthday. It was a fabulously fun afternoon filled with lots of laughter and hugs. We all get together way too seldom, and we don’t even have distance as a reason; we all live within 3 hours of each other. So yesterday was extra fun. My cousin Chrissy was there with her 3 sweet little kids…5 year old identical twin boys Keiffer and Kooper and almost- 2 year old Lola Grace, and my cousin Tiffany had her adorable little boy Sailor, who is almost 3. I took Rachel, and my cousin Mandy was there with her husband and girls. We went to TGIFridays and had a private room for the party, which made it easy to let the kids run around and play and give lots of hugs to everyone.
Since we don’t all get together that often, we made a point of taking pictures. We took family group photos. Sister photos. First generation cousin photos. Second generation cousin photos. I couldn’t wait to get home and load them onto the computer. I thought they all turned out great, even though I couldn’t help but think “UGH!” at how I looked in them. I had promised everyone I would post them on Facebook, so I did.
And then a funny yet sort of sad thing happened. Nearly every one of us began writing mean things about ourselves in the comments. My absolutely adorable cousin Chrissy wrote things like “YUCK!” and “Double YUCK!” and “I look like I’m possessed!” on photos she was in. She wrote to me how she was glad I took the pictures, but she was thinking of untagging herself in them because she looks so bad. My aunts told her if she did, they were going to come kick her a$$. But, those same aunts joined in the “let’s say how horrible we all look” game too. Even my Aunt Chris, who I think is beautiful and in no way looks like she is 60, wrote under one picture: “Unlovely me with my lovely sisters.”
When I read all of the comments this morning, I was going to post how now that we had the beating ourselves up for how we *think* we look out of the way, we needed to stop and focus on the fun day we had instead. And then I read that Message from God and laughed at the timeliness of that message. I posted it for my cousins and aunts to see, but then I really did some thinking about it, and in fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it all day.
I can’t help but wonder: Why are we as women so hard on ourselves? Why do we pick apart every little thing we don’t like about ourselves, usually every little thing we don’t like about our appearance, and turn molehills into mountains? I am just as guilty, if not more guilty, than anyone. My recent bad, no horrific, haircut had me near tears every morning when I tried to get ready for work. My less than flat stomach disgusts me on a regular basis. I could go on, but I won’t…you get the picture. I often wonder why we are so able to love our kids in such a way that their faults are nearly invisible to us—would we ever look at one of our children and say, “Wow, you look horrible in that picture!” or, “That shirt makes you look so fat!” I know that I wouldn’t, and most caring mothers wouldn’t either. Yet we say those things about ourselves; we put ourselves down for how we look, when our appearance is the least important thing about us.
Most men are just the opposite. I can’t imagine a group of men writing things like, “Wow, my ass looks fat in this picture!” Or, “I HATE my hair in pictures!” My husband has been known to say things such as “Look at that STUD!” when commenting on pictures of himself.
Yesterday, we obviously had all taken care with our appearance. We were all dressed nice, had on make up, had curled and sprayed our hair, put on jewelry, etc. Yet all we did once we saw the photos was berate ourselves and say thing like “YUCK!” and I can’t get it out of my mind. I look at those pictures and think, “What a bunch of beautiful women! I look at those pictures and think how not one of us in that room yesterday (with the exception of the little kids) has lived a life unscathed by sadness and difficulties and tragedies. As a group, we have suffered the loss of many babies during pregnancy, cancer, deaths of parents, husbands and siblings, life-threatening diseases, divorces, financial hardships, alcoholism and childhood abuse. Not one of us women in that private room at TGIFriday’s in Fairview Heights, IL yesterday have lived a life untouched by more than one of those struggles.
Yet we are all strong, beautiful, loving, caring women who have so much to be proud of. The oldest generation of women have every reason to be proud of the daughters they have raised in spite of the things they had to deal with when they were being raised…they have every reason to be proud of the women their daughters have become, the mothers they have become. And, I know that they are. They also have every reason to be proud of the personal struggles they themselves have overcome. I know that the women of my generation are proud of our mothers for those same reasons. Yes, we all have our faults. Everyone does. But we need to treat ourselves more kindly and not focus in silly things such as how our hair looks in pictures or if we are smiling enough. We need to focus on how lucky we all are because our lives could have turned out so much differently. We need to be proud of ourselves as women and as mothers because we all have much to BE proud of, no matter what goofy look we have on our face when the camera snapped a photo.
I know, I am a fine one to talk as I am probably one of the worst offenders. I never like how I look in pictures. Yet, I do keep letting myself be photographed anyway. I try to tell myself that someday when I am gone, my children and hopefully grandchildren will love having pictures of me, even as imperfect as they are. I absolutely treasure the photographs I have of my grandmothers and my aunt Mary. When I look at them, I don’t give a thought to their appearance other than a beautiful smile or sparkling eyes. I think about the times I spent with them playing cards and learning to crochet. I think about the delicious food they cooked. I think of my grandmother feeding squirrels from her hand in her front yard and telling me the "secrets" of growing beautiful annuals. Mostly, I think about how much I miss them and how fortunate I am to have photographs. I pray that someday, my children and grandchildren will feel the same about pictures of me that I look at now in disgust because I think I look fat.
Instead of hating our smiles or our hair or flabby stomachs, we should all vow to pat ourselves on the back. We should channel our inner dude and look at photographs of ourselves and say, “Wow, look at that amazing woman!”
Because we ARE amazing! And I am blessed to have so many amazing women in my life.
I’ve written enough for one day, so my joyful simplicities list is going to be brief. Quite frankly, it’s been a very long and challenging week, and honestly, I’m just feeling joyful that it’s over. But, I do have a few things that deserve a quick mention.
The biggest thing that brought me joy this week was finishing up a big writing project I’ve been working on and having my boss tell me “I love love love it! You did a great job!” That was music to my ears considering the past couple of weeks, I have been a bundle of broken-out-in-hives stress over it.
Speaking of hating your looks…I finally had my hair “fixed” from the horrible cut I had at the hands of bright pink hair girl a couple of months ago. I got back in touch with the gal who did my hair for years, who I have lost touch with the past 2 years, and this week, she fixed my choppy, short layers and highlighted my hair for the first time in 2 years. I feel like a new woman!
I’m sure I could come up with more, but I’m tired, my brain cells are fried, and I need to go do some laundry. That is NOT a joyful simplicity I will ever write about unless it’s to say laundry is caught up!
