I’m a sucker for a Julia Roberts movie, and one of my favorites is Runaway Bride. It hooked me years ago with its opening scene of her character riding a galloping horse across a field while the classic U2 “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” sets the tone. Like any timeless work of literature, a Julia Roberts movie is eternally relevant and the audience can find something new to appreciate each time they return to it. I’m only partly joking when I say this, because there really are certain plot threads that have elicited lightbulb moments at different stages of my life, and it’s Maggie’s egg crisis in Runaway Bride that’s got me thinking lately. A reporter brings it to Maggie’s attention that she doesn’t seem to know how she prefers to eat eggs; instead, she opts for whatever her current fiancé likes best. She realizes, after first protesting, that it’s true: she does not even know her own opinion of omelets. The first dozen times I watched the movie, I understood the reason for this plot point. But it’s taken until pretty recently for me to see that same tendency in myself. I suppose a lot of us might say the same. I’ve repeatedly ignored signals, protests, needs, and preferences to which my body has tried alerting me, unwisely deciding to allow my logical brain or the influence of others to override my physical check engine light.
The past several weeks have been strange times in my skin and between my ears. I’ve been off my feed and just not feeling 100%. Instead of being gentle with myself and responding with rest and compassion, I’ve been impatient and even angry with my body for not getting its act together quick enough, and for failing me in the first place. There are tasks to complete and to do lists to check off, after all. After about a week with no appetite, I found myself fantasizing about a local bagel place during last Saturday morning’s hike and exactly what I would order if I were there. By the time I emerged from the woods, I’d decided to drive across town to treat myself before I lost my nerve. Sitting in the car staring down at the bagel and cream cheese in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, or more accurately, staring down at more carbs than I typically eat in three days, I could choose to scold myself for being so “bad” or I could respect that my body expressed a need and I listened. To say it felt revolutionary for me to savor every bite of that warm, fresh bagel generously spread with cream cheese, and the hot coffee splashed with heavy cream is no exaggeration. It had been years since I last enjoyed one of my favorite breakfasts, even though I would gladly devour it weekly. Driving back to the house, blissfully sated and tolerating zero regrets, I admitted that for most of my life I’ve treated my body like an unforgivable disappointment that is best ruled with deprivation. And that epiphany, half a century into this life, was heartbreaking.
I feel better when I give my body the right care. It gets proper hydration, I keep it as free from toxins as possible, and I know I, like most animals, function better when I eat clean and stay lean(-ish). Simultaneously, however, there are times when I crave a particular meal that has no nutritionally-redeeming qualities, or I don’t have the motivation to exercise. In those moments I berate myself for being weak-minded and then adjust future caloric intake and exercise duration to “make up for” my “mistake” when I should lean in and nap when I need to and enjoy Mama’s gravy and biscuits when they’re offered. But we glorify “no pain, no gain.” People who have escaped the effects of gravity and the temptation of big meals are often held up as the gold standard. We might claim to value individuals with healthy, “real” bodies, but Sports Illustrated and social media remind us that only those who restrict calories, exercise rigorously, and kneel at the altar of youth are desirable. It’s this confusing contradiction of hearing “Practice self-care!”, “Accept your body” and also “Lose ten pounds or lose your partner”, “Your value is measured by the scale and the year on your birth certificate” that is crazy making.
What compounds my distress when I consider all the time I’ve devoted to “measuring up” and rejecting so much of what makes me who I am is knowing with every choice I make and opinion I express about myself, I can potentially influence how others view themselves as well. There’s a scene in another of my favorite movies, The Silence of the Lambs, in which the director of the mental institution where Hannibal Lecter is imprisoned tells Clarice Starling that Lecter’s diabolical charisma is so persuasive that he can convince other inmates to harm themselves, leaving Lecter’s hands clean. I can live with the hypocrisy of a society that proclaims “Every body is a beach body” even while encouraging Botox, Spanx, and just saying no to dessert if I had any confidence that we were coming to an end of that era of its sinister influence. And I’d love to say that the return of my appetite, thanks to the perfect bagel, would help me turn a corner and adopt a more loving relationship with who I see in the mirror. But what I can say, at least, is that there has never been a time when denying myself something I’ve needed has led to anything good, and that everything I observe in the mirror was put exactly where it is by a creator that makes no mistakes.
PartWolf 