5 Minute Mirror -BOAW Original

About 5 years ago, I started renovating my in laws house for my husband, my roommate and myself to all move into.  (I did NOT do this alone…. I was helping the general contractor). It was a cool project, and I wanted to have a hand in it so I knew how to fix things when they went wrong.

I was living in a house that had small mirrors… and going into a house that had mirrored closet doors in the master bedroom… mirrored closet doors.  4 7 foot tall doors, mirrored, in the room I was going to sleep in.

4 of these doors.  My room is a bit of a mess

 

The main bathroom had ginormous mirrors as well, and a mirrored wall (made of mirrored tiles).

Okay… so my house is a bit of a mess.

That’s a fuck-load of mirrors for a fat woman to be looking at herself in.

We renovated the “master bathroom” (a half bath)… and put two mirrored cabinets, and a giant round mirror on the wall.  When you open one of the cabinets, BAM, two more mirrors.  I have a lot of mirrors.  I like mirrors, I like the way they look.  Two of my smaller mirrors are from my parents.

From my mum.

 

From my step dad

The reason I bring this up, is because 5 years ago, as I was going back to the room (we were renovating the “weight room” into an office), I slowly noticed how my shirts began getting loose. I could actually wear my 3x shirts!

Then, disaster, I had a gall stone the size of my thumb, and the surgery didn’t go so well… and I was on my ass in a LaZboy for 5 weeks, weight back on.

When we moved in, I couldn’t get away from the mirrors.  The big one in the bathroom was in front of the shower… and the mirrored closet was on my side of the bed.  So, I decided that it was important I no longer cast my eyes away from my body.  I was alright with my face, but my body… that was another story.  I decided to start sitting on the bed, in just my underwear (no bra) staring at myself.  Getting to know myself.  (I chose to do it by just observing, some people get more “hands on”.)

It was really hard.

I mean, really REALLY hard.  I started looking at my imperfections.  My boobs aren’t the same size, one hangs lower, my belly hangs over, and not evenly.  My legs are veiny, my knees are weird, what the fuck is THAT???

I started at 2 minutes… I wasn’t allowed to take my eyes off my body for 2 minutes.  Every couple weeks it got longer.  It got to 5 minutes, and a little longer, and I quit seeing the imperfections as imperfections.  I started seeing them as me.  Me.  As in I am beautiful.  I am fat, have my long face days, but I am beautiful.

I see a small divet where my waist is supposed to be.  I used to bemoan the fact that I went from an hour glass to a keg shape… but there is a divet!  I have a waist! Yeah, my boobs are still uneven, my belly still hangs over unevenly, and my legs are still veiny, and I’m still not sure what the fuck THAT is… but, I love everything about me.  Including my backside.  Not just my bum.  Yeah, it could be smaller, or more pert (oh, hell, EVERYTHING could be more “pert”… but I’m not 20 anymore).  As I wrote in an earlier blog… I even like my stretch marks.

It’s still at about 5 minutes a day, when I wake up or before I go to sleep, or when I’m about to get into the shower…  I think I’m beautiful now.  I really do, and I think it really loud.

Maybe someday I’ll actually say it.

 

Beauty of a Woman BlogFest VI

This post is part of the Beauty of a Woman BlogFest VI! To read more entries, and potentially win a fun prize, visit the fest page on August’s McLaughlin’s site between today and 11pm PST March 11th.