As far as I can remember I have never had any issues with my body or how I look, for that matter. In fact, body image problems have been kind of a foreign concept. Growing up in a culture where bigger is better, the sign of a happy wife is one who's not skin and bones - where I come from, anyway. One who has curves in all the right places. I recall a countless number of times whenever I'd come home from varsity to visit, the first thing that my father usually commented on was how much weight I'd lost. But he'd never make any comment if (according to him anyway) I had put on a little bit.
You're never out of my imagination
I only have to close my eyes and I'll soon start crying again
My silence is heavy upon me,
Thoughts of you fill my head all the time
It's funny how someone I haven't even met can affect my life so
I look forward to the day when we will meet
Will you have my ears or my smile?
Will you have his big brown eyes?
You leave me wondering …
You keep me awake at night with your conversations
I sing you songs to make you sleep
I tell you stories of a time you'll soon experience
I cannot hide you anymore as each day I swell more and more, bearing witness of your imminent arrival.
You leave me wondering …
It's only a matter of time till the accident of birth when we'll meet
I wonder what it will be like
I pray it's easy and quick
I find no answer in your mumblings inside me
Still, you leave me wondering,
Never out of my imagination.
Road maps
My immediate reaction when I found out that I was pregnant was to terminate the pregnancy, because I didn't want anyone to find out about it. Besides the man was piling pressure on me. He didn't want his mother finding out about it. For a while, abortion seemed like the only option.
While I was pregnant, my body suddenly had a whole life of its own. I couldn't control the swelling nor the mood swings. The person growing inside me kept pushing and pushing, wanting to be seen. Part of me didn't want people to know that I had allowed a man to get that close to me to even leave evidence behind. Kind of like tampered with the temple. Evidence, which was now fast becoming a whole other person. As much as I'd always embraced the view that what I do with my life is my own business, I finally found myself almost ashamed of what I'd gone and done. Going and getting myself knocked up, nogal. For a girl brought up in a relatively strict home there was no express rule that I wasn't supposed to be fooling around with boys, you just didn't.
There was an element of almost losing control of what was happening to my body. I started to worry about the impending possibility of stretch marks, road maps that would leave tracks of where my tummy had stretched up to. Half hoping that I'd inherited my mother's good genes. She's borne seven children but you could never tell! Praying fervently and hoping that these road maps wouldn't be left anywhere on my body. At 22, looking hot was still top of the list!
Our minds cheating us
Eating disorders should be called self-image distortions because they are fuelled by what our minds tell us. Our minds cheat us all the time and we let them. I had a close brush with one of these self-image distortions. My niece went through a bad bout of bulimia when were in high school. Growing up as a skinny girl, she thought her body would always stay that way. But then adolescence hit. And it hit hard. Her body started filling out, and really not in a bad way. Living with a bunch of girls in boarding school didn't make it any easier either. With everybody counting every single kilojoule consumed, it was difficult for her not to join the wagon. Hell, I still wonder why I didn't. The sickness went on for a while. She used to purge everywhere. Secretly, I was glad that it wasn't me that was having these issues. Blocking it out wasn't that hard either.
Mr Man
If I were a rose, I'd close my petals so you'd think I wasn't pretty and you wouldn't be able to pluck me away from my stem.
I'd have thorns all over so you couldn't touch me without being hurt first. Or maybe I'd be a bee and sting you every time you tried to catch me and disable my wings
Oh, if only I could
You wouldn't even be able to drink the dewdrops that cover my petals early in the morning
You wouldn't even be able to sun yourself in my summer.
Oh, if only you could
Put me on a throne so I can be your princess
Kiss my hand and bow at my feet
Better yet, I'd be your High Priestess and you'd be my faithful concubine.
I figure that deep down somewhere even the most confident of women (myself included), longs to be loved just for who she is. Without the frills. Enter Mr Man, who provided temporary comfort when I needed it. Rushed intimacy behind closed doors, on the back seat of his small Volksie wagon sometimes. I needed to be touched, to be close to a man like that. I needed to feel like I was still attractive, that I was still beautiful.
Mr Man always used to call me when he had no one else to call. He'd been my first; I guess that made things different. We'd been together on and off for three years. I'd met him through one of my friends one summer night back in '97.
My then best friend took off with my date that night; I ended in the front seat with him, while my friend was busy doing my crush in the back seat. Basically that's how we met. If I were superstitious I'd say it was fate. I refuse to believe that Lady Luck would knowingly deal me such a bad one. Over time we got know each other - I knew his bullshit, he knew mine. This time around, I wasn't going to start complicating things by falling in love with him and neither was he by falling in love with me. All we needed to do now was just get down to the business at hand. The itching for touch was fast becoming unbearable.
"I have to go home to my baby. Sometimes you seem to forget that I have a baby."
"No, you forget that you have a baby."
This was usually the point when I was jolted back to reality. Disgusted with myself for what I'd let myself do yet again. The only thing on my mind now was her. I had to go home to her. I didn't want to be here, lying next to Mr Man. There was nothing connecting us to each other, really. I guess I thought that he'd fill this void in me. Only I was mistaken to think that someone else but me could take the emptiness away.
"Please take me home" usually meant the end of yet another meaningless episode.
Thrills of your hands right there on my ass
The grasp of your fingers on my skin is enough to send thousands of tingles all over moving and shaking places I didn't even know existed.
Tell me, love, why I don't get so engrossed so when you're near, just the thought of you is enough to end signals all over.
Darling do I let these
Love juices flowing without any inhibitions
Moans and groans
I can hardly stifle
Pleasure intensifies …
Sexual encounters have certainly become much more pleasurable. I'm more at ease with my body, I guess. Or does it perhaps have anything to do with the fact I'm with a man who's more in love with my mind than anything else? Or maybe it's my newfound love affair with myself!
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LitNet:
03 December 2004
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