An Impossible Perfect

I feel like I have to present this with an explanatory note: this post is about body image. I'm well aware that some people will consider it irrelevant to them, and/or I may be seen to have harped on about this a lot lately. I also know from experience that a lot of men think this is an exclusively female subject. If you are one of the lovely people who take the time to read my blog, and you consider that you fall into one of these categories/views I've just mentioned, can I appeal to you to please be open-minded and carry on reading anyway? I know I can only write from my own perspective and experience, but this is a subject transcendent, I believe, of gender and political views. I really hope it can spark some discussion amongst those who may not have actively considered it before.

Nobody warns you how completely impossible physical perfection is. The idea of perfection you learn, through observation/osmosis, is just a complete misunderstanding of reality - there is no one 'perfect'. It doesn't exist.

You may get 'lucky' genetically, and avoid predisposition to stretch marks, cellulite, acne, 'excessive' body hair (whatever that means), weight retention, whatever else may be in our genetic code that is considered below the impossible standard. You may work incredibly hard as an athlete, dancer, something else that physically alters your body. You might not bruise or scar easily. You might not frown so much that it lines your face. You might have the perfect collagen balance in your skin. You might discipline your eating habits to improve your health. You might do or have all or none of the above.

Still nothing prepares you - well, prepared me - for waking some days, looking down at your body and wondering how the hell it ended up the way it did. Why no one ever tells you that you don't have to carry a baby to have stretch marks; that your adolescent growth spurts and then weight gain in your twenties will do that for you. That you'll have them in places that you're not strictly 'fat' - the backs of your knees, your breasts. That men get them too.

Nothing prepares you for the afternoon as a teenager that you cut your leg climbing a fence, and the nurse while she steri-strips it jokes that your modelling career will be scuppered by the scar. You're not planning on a modelling career, but it's tantamount to telling you that this mark will make you less beautiful, less desirable in the eyes of others. And because you've learned that beauty and desirability are the standard, you're ashamed of it. Some days you put make up on it to make it less obvious.

Nothing prepares you for the first out-of-place hair you find on your body, somewhere that hair apparently isn't meant to grow.

The bingo wings that won't completely disappear however many toning exercises you do.

The blue shadows under your eyes that one sleepless night bring out in the morning, however well hydrated you are, whatever creams you use.

The way your stomach folds softly when you sit, even when you're at your thinnest and fittest, in spite of all your sit-ups.

There are many things we can change about ourselves, if we want to. But there are so many we can't. And our physical selves perplex and frustrate us, because they won't conform to the perfection standard, even if we are 'lucky' or we work our hardest. I can lie in bed and try to count my marks and flaws and wonder how my skin has done this to me, but where does that leave me? Afraid? Ashamed? Insecure? And for what - for something I can't control, for a standard I can't achieve. Moreover, a standard that fails to allow for the natural differences of humanity, or the beauty of the mind and spirit.

Here's a radical idea. It's not new and it's certainly not original. And by radical I mean affecting the fundamental nature of something - I don't mean scary, off the wall and unsustainable. Let's love our bodies. Let's be grateful for them - all the things they can do; all the things they are; the living that our scars and marks represent; the fights we have won; the ones we are still fighting. Let's accept and celebrate their uniqueness, their diversity, their strength and their softness. Let's remember they are vessels for our life and not our life itself. And let's not hold onto an impossible perfect anymore.

The Fear

For a while I have wanted to post about something very personal, something which makes me feel vulnerable. I've considered backing out, but my blog is about honesty and is supposed to be a place for me to say what I really think and feel, to discuss things I think need to be said. I hope it encourages others to do the same, so sometimes I have to be brave. And that's why I've decided to write about the fear and doubt I experience in life, and how I (try to) handle it.

Every day is a battle of wills. Each morning when I wake up there's a little voice in the back of my mind saying, 'why bother?' - telling me, 'nothing will happen today. Nothing valuable will come of this. You're not cut out for it, you can't handle it; you never were good enough, clever enough, strong enough, liked enough.' On lots of days I don't even hear the voice, or it's whispering faintly and is silent by the time I get to the shower. Other mornings I am not so fortunate, and it's the loudest thing in my head, making me want to retreat back under the covers.

Because no matter how certain I am of my value and abilities the majority of the time, in those vulnerable moments where my subconscious seems to rule me, I can really be brought down. Especially if I am foolish enough to feed those insecurities, to interpret the success of others as my own failure.

So I have two choices - I can succumb, or I can fight. I can lie there feeling miserable and accept these thoughts of my insignificance and incompetence, or I can get up and prove them wrong. Not with unfounded bravado but steadily, reminding myself that other people's lives are not the measure by which I should be judging my own.

Everyone has a different path and different battles. Some things take longer to achieve, but I choose to focus on the process almost more than the end-goal, knowing I can learn from every step, every challenge. When my heart and head are so full and I'm never done with all the things I want to create and see and explore and give, and I'm never done with loving, then I know there's enough in there that's positive and worth fighting to hold onto. I also know for certain that I don't have to do it alone, and that gives me courage - the knowledge that wonderful people in my life will remind me of what I can do more than of what I can't.

Overall I'm reminded that none of us is designed to function completely solo. Humanity is meant to create these support networks of those we love and trust - we are supposed to uphold and promote one another, and while that doesn't shut out all fear or anxiety or pressure, it makes it easier to handle. Beyond that, I also know I need to address my mindset and what feeds it, which is a whole other challenge. It's one I plan to intentionally pursue in the coming months, and I hope if you ever feel this way too, that you will as well.

Working It Out

There's no obvious starting point for this one. I don't remember a moment of epiphany one way or the other, only brief glimpses of triumph and panic which have fed into this neurosis I'm forcibly shifting. Maybe it's in part the obsessive nature of my early relationship with it that has made the last few years such a challenge.

I'm talking of course about the gym - that hallowed realm of sweat, anxiety, and the smell of metal that you can't get off your hands. I still have to take a deep breath before walking in sometimes, like I'm heading to an interview and need to take a moment to put my game face on. There's something about exercising publicly that makes me more uncomfortable than most uncomfortable things I can think of (and I have a good imagination). 

Reasons? So many. It's the performance anxiety; people can see what I'm doing, what if I do it wrong? It's the music; why do they give you the option of plugging headphones into all the equipment and choosing a radio station when they're going to pump something loudly over the house speakers? It's the constant presence of the opportunity for self-criticism. And it's the mirrors - what is with the excessive number of mirrors?! I'm not weight-lifting, I don't need to check my form from three different angles. I definitely don't want to spend half an hour observing my own sweaty face bob up and down as I battle through the cross-trainer moderate aerobic program, trying not to accidentally make eye contact with other gym-goers. Maybe they're just as paranoid as I am that everyone else is judging them, but probably not. Inexplicably, in the back of my mind I am always fighting the idea that at any given moment someone might realise that I don't belong, that I don't actually know how to use some of this equipment, that I'm making it up as I go along. At least that's how it feels, even though I have actually been inducted and regularly working out for over two years now.

I remember when I first went to the gym it seemed like a very exciting grown-up thing to do. I was seventeen; my parents were in charge of a boys' boarding house at a school and we lived on site, so automatically had access to the school gym. Not being a natural athlete and with no one to force me into it, there wasn't really a sport or exercise routine I had got into in my teens other than netball. I only took up running at sixteen out of boredom while camping, when I would jog barefoot around the field in the drizzle and enjoy the visceral blood-pumping experience of it, reveling in my solitude. The gym in contrast was a big shiny adventure, full of challenges and companionship - I tended to go with my mum or new friends from one of the girls' boarding houses.

It was a different story once I actually joined the sixth form there. It quickly became apparent that the gym was a battlefield of adolescent posturing and perfection-obsessed youth, as time and again I heard gorgeous specimens bemoan physical faults I couldn't even spot, discussing diet plans while burning off as many calories as possible in a session. I was there to try and get fit (at this stage I was always at the back on my D of E expeditions) and while I had been losing weight, it wasn't my primary objective when it came to the gym. In fact I honestly can't remember ever consciously thinking that I was at the gym to lose weight, but steadily it became more than a healthy habit and more of a necessity. I wanted to go every evening, and if I couldn't there would be this latent frustration bubbling under the surface. The weight kept falling off and I felt powerful, like I had mastered my own body, but even while my gym obsession continued I caught the glances of my peers bouncing off the mirrors. What was wrong with me now, now that I was thin? What were they looking at? I never lost the paranoia.

Getting back into the gym after three years of university and the corresponding three stone weight gain took a lot of courage. It helped that the one I joined was usually empty of other people, and the staff there were the sweetest and didn't make me feel like an idiot, but now I've had to move to a busy gym it's almost like starting all over again. The fact is I might never feel entirely comfortable with it however much I learn to love the skin I'm in, or however many times I tell myself that it doesn't matter what other people think. My continued mantra of 'this is for me and my body's good only' might need to be on my lips every time I step in, every time I take that deep breath to walk through the door. But that's okay, as long as I don't give up.

In conclusion, I'd like to share a very short creative piece I published on my old blog last November when I was tackling running again. It sums up my recent feeling and experience of exercise, and I hope anyone undertaking the same challenge can find the sense of triumph and overcoming that results from facing our demons. 

Just Watch Me

A dull yellow stain was spreading through the cloud over the hill. Birds trilled their matins into damp air and their music hung in the vapour, exhorting the expanse, laudate. Dew seeped through the webbing of her trainers.

Heartbeat in time with her feet, the ground gave way to each footfall like sponge. She was heavy; she felt her weight in each stride yet she didn't slow. She was a force, a power. Her weight was behind her, not against - this wasn't about diminution, this was about strength.

The constant grey was breaking into slivers above and the trees were pulling themselves upright. Skyward was the aim of each living thing pushing out of the earth and she wouldn't look down, wouldn't give her detractors the satisfaction.

They might not understand the complexity of it, the duality. That it is possible both to accept and to improve; to be and to do things considered mutually exclusive.

Her breath came sharp as the hill rose to meet her, demanding a tribute of pain which she gave gladly, and laughing inside she hit the crest and made herself its conqueror. She planted her feet and her flag.

I can do this. Just watch me.

Hush Your Mouth

I'm not a big tea drinker outside of work, but somehow in the office I almost always say yes, and I almost always get given this mug:

I smile a wry smile and glances are exchanged, and I drink my tea and shut up for a few minutes. It's just the way I am - I'm a verbal processer. My parents have hours of video footage and hundreds of photos from my childhood and there I am, rabbiting away, bossing around my younger siblings or holding forth very seriously with the nearest adult. I always wanted to join in the 'grown up' conversation, so much so that my mum regularly had to shoo me out of the room when the subject turned to less than child-friendly topics, and if she didn't I was bound to loudly ask awkward questions.

To my parents' credit I never thought there was anything wrong with this, although I have several distinct memories of being shut down by less understanding adults and feeling rather small and sorry for myself as a result. I suppose I must have cut an odd figure to the average grown-up, especially if they didn't have children - this bobbed beanpole with a very earnest face, full of loud opinions and overusing my favourite adjective of the week (I once told my grandma that a trip to the cinema had been 'absolutely horizontal!', which is still a go-to anecdote when they want to embarrass me).

I will always be grateful that I was given the opportunity to channel my love of language in creative and engaging ways. My family let me story-tell to my heart's content, and my primary school teacher got me onto a creative writing weekend course aged eight, from which I came back with a whole book of poems and the firm resolution that I would become a journalist. I don't know why I didn't plump for novelist but I was getting into politics at this stage; also aged eight, I had marched across the road from my school to volunteer my opinion to the news crew who were reporting on the fact that local residents had prevented the school from buying the field immediately behind the playground, which meant that we had to be walked half a mile on country lanes to the common for sports. I just remember being propelled by a very strong sense of injustice, and while I'm sure there were plenty of people who understood the situation better than I did, I was the one who wanted to articulate it.

Out of necessity I have of course learned to dial it down - my mum lived the example of a good listener and I watched her, learning to think before speaking and to make what I had to say count. 'Precis!' she would tell me repeatedly as I wriggled my way through long-winded explanations, or, in later years, homework essays. I never liked having to brutally cut out so much of what I thought was valuable description, but as I was told I couldn't always live in 'fairy land' (and I was insulted when it was implied I had no sense of practicality because I was always dreaming) I started to shut my mouth.

Maybe I shut it a bit too much. In fact I know I did. It's such a fine line between effective communication and overshare, between creativity and pigs-may-fly, between what people will accept as whimsy and what makes them think you're just plain odd. I wanted to make people happy, that was all. I wanted them to like me. And slowly but surely that meant keeping my lips firmly pressed together, pretending I hadn't seen what someone had done, pretending I didn't have an opinion that needed airing, pretending it didn't matter when it really, really did. Because their eyes were judgemental and they would look at me as if to say, I dare you. What they were really saying was 'hush your mouth!'.

You might be reading this thinking, 'well clearly she's given in to some kind of paranoia, and no one actually cares what she thinks/says.' I'll freely admit you might be right, and I am probably far more afraid of being considered irrelevant than opinionated or strange. Nobody likes to be ignored. But I'm willing to hazard a guess that some of this rings a bell for you, because you too have experienced that strange sensation of suffocation, second-guessing yourself and the value of what you want to say. We believe in free speech, we've seen people die defending it even this week, and it's not a straightforward situation at all. There are so many questions that need to be asked, but there's still so much fear of asking them. How will we know what's important and what we can impact if we're afraid to open our mouths?

I don't tend to make New Year's resolutions, mainly because I'm making resolutions all year around; I need a kick up the backside more than once every twelve months! It just so happens that a lot of things in my life seem to be coming to a head in January; I'll call it serendipity. I guess what I want to say now is, if anything I've experienced and written here resonates with you, please join me in refusing to shut up. In your job; in your study; in your home; when you have something valuable to contribute; when you have truth to convey; when someone needs kindness; when something needs correcting; when the awkward questions have to be asked; when someone deserves congratulation and encouragement; when someone needs to be called out; when justice is lacking; when to bite your tongue would be to diminish your very essence - speak up. If I have a 2015 mantra it's this: I won't let fear be my master.

The Opening Gambit

I love red.

This is no secret to those who know me. I have red dresses, red jeans, and the most delicious red shoes. I paint my nails red, and my lips. Whatever the weather, whatever I wear, red is never far from me; on my earrings, the pen in my bag, the vase in my kitchen, the glass on my table. Red is in my mind and in my heart.

It wasn't always so. I grew up in blues and yellows, purples and oranges, loud and brash patterns my mum created, leggings and Dr Martens among the pale pink tights of my peers. For Christmas when I was ten I became the proud owner of what became fondly known as the 'Joseph fleece', a veritable technicolour dreamcoat of a sweater which was very definitely cut for me to grow into. I was called Joseph from across the street by kids from the local school and I still wore it, still took it on holiday even in the summer, still let it feature in holiday snaps of balmy Carcassonne and the balloon-filled skies of the Loire valley. The world was colourful and I was colourful in it.

I could never pinpoint the demise of the Joseph fleece or what it represented; there was no single moment of departure. Somewhere between patent black platform boots and bleached denim jeans and trying to squeeze my awkward body into the things that made me decide it was awkward, bright colours became something to avoid and my wardrobe metamorphosed into a sea of pastels, generously-cut and ten years ahead of my age bracket. At 16 I was to be found in my auntie's hand-me-down dungaree dresses or work blouses. I wore a voluminous lilac number to my first ever dinner dance and I cried after my mum lost patience with our four-hour jeans hunt through the high street stores of Oxford Street, as pair after pair was too tight, too short. I wasn't a shy girl by any means - I was a Cadet Leader with St John's Ambulance; I ran a family newsletter for which I demanded subs from my relatives; I sang in public. But my body wasn't part of this, wasn't playing ball. As far as I was concerned I operated from the neck up and it just became something to cover, to hide.

The summer before I started sixth form, my parents embarked on the Atkins diet and I decided to join them. It didn't last long, as I lost weight so quickly that they banned me from further participation due to my age, but at that point I was hooked on the power I felt, this power to change what I thought had hindered me. In nine months I dropped three dress sizes and acquired a new wardrobe, a tiny and experimental one with short skirts, loud tights, and things that were long and lean and just what a girl my age ought to be, right? And I got my first red dress. It was a beauty, theatrical and flamenco-flavoured, unabashed like the girl who wore it.

It's a funny thing (but probably a common one) that we can attain a long-held goal and fail to achieve the fulfillment we thought it would bring. Because my body was different and larger and an awkward shape to dress, I assumed it was the problem and needed to be altered and brought in line. Then I got thin and was still hyper-critical of my physical self, still complaining about my appearance to long-suffering sisters who wondered how I could be dissatisfied with a thigh gap and jeans that the youngest of them couldn't even get into. Boys noticed me now and I fitted in with the other girls and I wasn't embarrassed to go to the pool anymore, but my attitude had changed for the worse, and I was beginning to judge everything around me by the same warped rule with which I judged myself. I wore red in a mask of defiance and that was all it meant to me.

I could go into details as to how my volatile appearance-based confidence led me down various garden paths, or how I struggled as I regained the weight through university and the first year of my marriage, but the weight thing isn't entirely the point. The point is I came to love red, truly love the life and energy and confidence it represents, as I came to love myself - my whole self, not just the parts that fit the narrow pattern of accepted femininity which I had mistakenly come to believe was the full picture. We are so beautifully diverse, so perfectly imperfect, so riotously bold, so infinitely capable: every woman. Every one.

So I love red. Red is the lifeblood and passion of humanity, the vivid splendour of the earth, the comfort and heat of the sun, joy and freedom bought through pain. I wear red as a reminder of who I am and what I can be, in and with my body rather than because of or in spite of it.