How Baby

I’ve been having a stretch of bad body days recently – more like a few months, honestly – and it’s beginning to wear on me. My comfort in my own body seems to swing wildly between acceptance and downright loathing. I paged through the HB archives the other day, and it’s interesting how not only do I do strips about body image (positive AND negative) pretty cyclically, but also my own self-portraiture changes like the moon, waxing and waning.

I’ve had all the arguments with myself: it doesn’t matter, all bodies are good bodies, you’re modelling bad self-esteem for your daughter, no one cares as much as you do, et cetera. Fact is, I’m just not comfortable in my skin any more. I haven’t been in a long time.

It’s hard to articulate in a way that doesn’t sound vain, or doesn’t prompt people to message me about their weight loss shakes (please don’t do that).   It’s not about whatever number is on the scale. Pregnancy did a number on my relationship with my body, turning it into a thing that seems out of my control even five years later.  Without my saying anything, my mom bod projects things out into the world on my behalf, things that don’t align with my own concept of self, and it’s like a splinter under my nail when I look in the mirror on a bad day and all I can think is ‘that’s not me.’

There’s no punch line!! I’m just having a real Time of it right now.