Reflections and Introspections

I will be 36 in February. For some reason a few weeks ago it really hit me that I will be 36 soon. But it didn't hit in a bad way. It just...occurred to me.

I guess that I've metioned different things to my husband because he told me today that I'm really embracing this. Yes, yes I am.

As young girls we all look forward to our first bra. We're proud at each new cup size. As a few years pass, we realize that we're unable to jump and run without one. The novelty begins to wear off. Then we look forward to nursing babies, finding that bras are once again a godsend...for a while. We get weary of the constant feedings. Our babes wean and we look in the mirror and see our once beautiful breasts a bit lower than they once were. We turn to underwire for help. Some women are so dismayed that they feel the need to go under the knife to "fix" their breasts. We compare our selves to younger girls and find ourselves short.

As young girls we anxiously await our passage into womanhood with our first cycle. It's exciting, for a day and a half, until we realize that we're going to do this every month for the next 25, 35, 40 YEARS. Then we begin to resent it each month: the cravings, the bloat, the hormones. We spend an entire week complaining that it's coming. But we miss that it's that exact cycle which enables us to create life! It's a wonderful glorious thing and we bemoan it each month.

As adolecense we see our hips begin to develop and we're captivated by the mirror looking at our new curves. We use them to attract the boys and we're proud to have them. Then we age a bit and they get bigger than we might like. We begin to become uphappy with them and complain about the very things we were so enamored with as teenage girls. We grow older, have children, and somehow expect to look seventeen again.

We go through all of these changes failing to realize that there are many rights of passage in life and how we handle them will either make us or break us.

Ladies, there is nothing wrong with your breasts or mine! Mine sustained life for five precious children and if they hang a little low and swing too and fro, they're BEAUTIFUL and they're mine and they're perfect the way they are.

And there is nothing wrong with your hips or mine! As long as you're HEALTHY they're perfect the way they are, they've changed, that's all and they are a part of you. So gravity got ahold of them. So what!

We grow older and we pass from child to young lady to young woman. Now I'm turning 36, I have night sweats and my cycles are getting a bit odd and I have saddle bags forming in my thighs that I can't get rid of and I have wrinkles forming around my mouth (hopefully from all that smiling I like to do). My metabolism is slowing down so I have to be more careful about what I eat and I have to make sure that I exercise. And I need to get a base line mammogram.

And why? Because I'm passing into another phase of my life, another beautiful phase that will once again change my body and my appearance. And it's okay. I looked into the mirror this afternoon after fully coming to appreciate what is going on with my body and I really like my non-perky boobs and my less than "Hollywood perfect" hips and thighs and the lines around my mouth and I realize that these are just the marks of a happy life with a wonderful husband and five amazing children and I LIKE the way I look, every bit of it.

And as I spend the next decade passing from young woman to mature woman, I will not be anxious for it to end. I will not judge my body against the bodies of girls two phases behind me. I will embrace this change and I will embrace me and I will do my best to enjoy every little bit of it instead of trying to rush it on or longing for life which has already passed.

Because I am a woman.

And this is my body.

And it's functions and looks are perfect and running along just the way nature intended it to be.

I am a woman. I am beautiful. I will be 36 soon.

And in about ten years, we won't need to purchase condoms anymore.