meat sack

I’d like to say that my body and I have come to terms with one another. But the truth is, I feel betrayed by it constantly. Not just the aches of middle age that creep in mysteriously overnight, having slept on the right pillow the wrong way. That it insists on failing me, suddenly, walking down the stairs.

Shit, there goes a hip.

It’s the droop of my cheeks as they slide down my face into jowls that weren’t there last year. The lines around my mouth. Eyes that don’t see without assistance. The papery creases on the backs of my hands. The way my tits sway low, past their prime, past their purpose.

Some days, I am aging gracefully. Embracing weighted vest walks and eye make up for ‘mature’ skin (though that term can just fuck right off). And some days, I am aging in a silent, screaming resistance. Thrashing around inside while patting sunscreen onto spotty skin and smiling with teeth darkening with age despite attentive brushing. I should drink less coffee. But I won’t.

I’m keenly aware that this is just a new version of the same war. A standoff that started before I even *knew* my own body. Watching my mother slap at her thighs, sweat to the oldies, bounce around the house in a Metabolite jitter. Her body always requiring… altering. And as I watched my own thighs turn into hers, I knew, with a certainty, that it was unacceptable to look like me. Decades of wearing a sweater tied around my waist to hide the offensive too-muchness. Eating less to be worth more. Cringing at the wobble of cellulite as I crawled out of a bed warm with a man who must, I thought, just be tolerating it.

The vocabulary of insecurity. Saddlebags and tennis ball boobs and secretary spread and booby do (‘her belly sticks out more than her boobies do’). Meat curtains. Suck it in, push it up, cover it up.

Somewhere along the way, I learned to take up my space. To talk over the noise of my own imperfections, hissing like a radiator pipe in winter. Pay it no mind. This body has seen some shit. She is strong and capable and beautiful, in her way.

Sure, sometimes I catch my reflection in a mirror and wonder, who is that old lady? But then I think, let me tell you about her. She’s kind of a badass.