Self-Image

If there's one thing I've learned about myself in the last 8-1/2 years, it's that I'm never gonna manage to live up to my own self-image. Maybe that's a good thing, and maybe it's not ... I'm still trying to figure that out. I just know that the picture of who I am in my head doesn't really line up with the lady I see in the mirror anymore.

Don't get me wrong ... I love being a mom (at least most of the time). It's the one job I always wanted, and I'm grateful that I'm getting the chance to fulfill that dream. Somehow, though, there was always a gap, I guess, in my head between actually BEING a mom and LOOKING like a mom. In my head I still see the size 6-8 young lady I was in my teens and twenties. I found a look that worked for me and I loved it. Accenting things like my trim waist and long legs became second nature to me ... in many respects, it was just who I WAS.

Then I was blessed with a wonderful husband and 3 children in 5 years. I jumped into the role of full-time mommy whole-heartedly, and even though I'm still learning how to juggle all the joys and responsibilities, I'm thankful every day for the chance to do it. Being a Mommy has become almost as natural to me as any other part of my normal life.

Once in a while, I pass a mirror, though, and wonder what happened to the person I remember. Now I actually LOOK like a Mommy. I spend most days in jeans and a t-shirt, because it's easy to go from cleaning to cooking to child-care to whatever in it. More often than not, I've got my hair yanked up in a pony-tail or some such thing, because it keeps it out of the way of the chores and little fingers. Where I used to somehow feel undressed without my makeup on, now I'm doing good to "put my face on" on Sunday morning before church. My trim waist isn't any more ... I'm not heavy, but I look like I've had three kids. Most of the time I don't worry about it, until and unless the occasional someone asks me when the next baby is due. Then I start pondering an old-fashioned girdle or something. Or doing something unthinkable, like trying to find extra time for a dreaded "regular exercise routine" beyond the normal stuff I do during the day. (Fortunately, something usually comes up and that thought doesn't last long!) I look in the mirror now, and see my mother ... and though I love her dearly, somehow the thought always startles me as I'm sure it does every generation of women.

When I occasionally get to feeling discouraged about the whole thing, though, a ray of sunshine brightens my day  ... most often in the form of my husband. He is loving and caring and so many of the things I hoped for in a man I would marry. He doesn't care whether I wear makeup ... he says he prefers me without it. He has even been known to tell me he likes to come home and see me all frazzled, because he knows I've been doing all the things that I need and want to do. He tells me I'm beautiful when I feel the most bedraggled, and though I don't always completely believe him, I am glad that he thinks so, because I don't really think of myself in those terms anymore ... I'm too busy being Mommy.

And perhaps the biggest blessing of having a man like this in my life is that his children listen, and they learn. They randomly call me beautiful on days when I don't necessarily feel that way, and I smile at the future, because I know some day those words will probably encourage a Mommy of my grandchildren, and she, as I, will feel blessed.