The Older Sister / Perspective – The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans LLC

0


Awhile ago, I asked you to tell me what you wanted me to write about. One of the questions I got back was this….How has my perspective changed about my body over the years? That my friends, is a very good question because boy, has it changed.

A long, long time ago, I weighed 124 pounds. That was the day I got married. My husband’s uncle used to call me “test tube”. He thought I was way too thin and looking back now, he was probably right. But, I didn’t think I was too thin at all. I actually thought I was a little chubby. Oh, to be so chubby again.

I had my babies. I had my first baby in 1974 and I held on to a few pounds. Then, I had a miscarriage in 1981 and I ate and drank my way through the winter trying to make myself feel better. I added quite a few pounds that winter. Next, I had my twins in 1983 and once again, I held on to some more of the weight. Lastly, I had my last baby in 1987 and guess what? Yep, held on to some more pounds.

I tried to get rid of those pounds time after time. I’d have some success and they would stay off for awhile, but as soon as I wasn’t looking, a few would creep back.

Enter the year 2000 and here comes peri menopause and then full blown menopause. I’m sure you can guess what that meant. The metabolism went to hell and here comes the pounds. Do you see a pattern here?

I have been trying to get a grip on this for years now. I have had some success, but not as much as I was hoping for. So, Brooke asked “How has my perspective changed about my body over the years?” Here is what I can tell you.

In the last 15 months, I have had to say good bye to far too many people that I loved and/or cared about. I am pretty sure that I have lost more people in the last 15 months than I have in the last 15 years. It’s been a pretty rough go of it.

I think the true start of my perspective change came with the writing of this post. When you start losing friends your own age totally out of the blue with no warning, you start to think about your priorities. When you start to lose people your children’s age with no warning whatsoever, you know it’s time to do some serious thinking.

While I continue to work out and watch what I eat, this is no longer the be all and end all that I thought it was before. While I don’t love the way I look, I don’t hate it either. I am as healthy as I have been in a long time. There are plenty of people out there who are worse off than me. I’m okay with me. I may not be Twiggy, but I’m also not Two Ton Tessy.

My perspective has changed to focusing on my family, my friends, myself. I want to spend as much time as I possibly can with my family. My husband, my daughters, my grandkids, my son-in-laws are everything to me. My mom and my siblings and in-laws, my nieces and nephews are so important to me. I have some of the most wonderful friends a girl could ask for. I want to spend as much time with them as possible. I want to spend time with myself. I want to do some of the things that I have always wanted to do. I have started painting. I want to crochet. I want to focus on the really important things.

If I have learned nothing else in the last 15 months, it’s that nobody is promised tomorrow. We have to take the time we have and make it wonderful. Just being able to watch the sunset on the beach with my husband is a gift. To be able to paint with my grandkids and have them spend the night is a true blessing. To spend time with my girls and know that they know how much they mean to me is everything to me. I’ve learned that the little things are truly the biggest things.

Has my perspective changed? You bet it has. I will always continue to try and get that body back where I want it, but if it doesn’t make it all the way back, I’ll be okay with that. What is most important now is the people in my life. I want to be sure that if my time comes sooner than I ever guessed it would, there will be no doubt that the people that I love will know for sure how much I loved them. I think that is a great perspective, don’t you?