looks

some things are really awesome that we don't celebrate properly.

like getting old.

some women hate their bodies for getting old on them. how dare they! they run out to get botox and plastic surgery and liposuction and all this other scary shit. they hate their wrinkles and their sagging breasts and their weight gain. i know that the amount of self-hatred out there is pretty high, but i don't think i've seen it worse than i have, generally, in women who are aging.

instead of focusing on how our bodies look, i think we should focus on how much we have survived. old people are the most kick ass people out there because they've made it through all the crap life has thrown at them. i can't even imagine everything that an old person has gone through: divorce, death, tragedy, illness, love, childbirth, raising kids, getting an education, building a career, excelling in hobbies, being a good friend, being a caring spouse... the list is endless. they are survivors. but instead of celebrating these achievements, many people beat up on their bodies: the very things that carried them through life and allowed them to experience the joys in that life.

your body is amazing. because of your body, you can dance. you can sit where you are right now and type on a keyboard. you can drive, you can have sex, you can climb mountains, you can give birth if you're a woman, you can save a drowning person, you can write stories, you can do yoga... i think the problem in our culture is that we view the human body in terms of aesthetics, and not as instrumental tools. it doesn't fucking matter what your body looks like, it's what it can does. what you look like is just a product of your genes, of bone size, skeletal frame, skin pigmentation, muscle and fat deposits... it's really just dna. you didn't choose to be born and you didn't choose what you look like. in reality, these are very inconsequential things. we have little power over them, and our looks are just our outward presentation to the world. what matters is how you feel.

you know how when you love someone, you don't care what they look like? you probably don't even notice. this sounds strange, but the same phenomenon happens when you love yourself.

this reminds me of something my therapist told me:

"imagine that your loved ones are at your funeral. there's a grave that says, 'she cured cancer.' another grave says, 'he cured aids.' they come to your grave. it says, 'she was thin.' is this what you want to be remembered for?"

bottom line: you decide how much you want to care about your appearance. but keep in mind that it will never matter nearly as much to anyone or anything else. and i don't know about you, but i'd rather spend my life concentrating on more interesting and important matters than my freaking body fat percentage. talk about boring.