A Look Inside

Time for some girl talk.

But this is also for you men, because it will provide a window into the American, middle-class female psyche that might well change your world.

What I'm about to post is not just an Amy! thing. I'm pretty sure a vast number of women in my demographic, at least, would find a lot in common with what I'm about to reveal.

Interested yet? Here goes:

I think women go through various stages of relating to their own looks. And I'm not just talking about bodies, but the whole package. The person she sees in the mirror, both dressed and un-dressed, hair done and un-done.

It's not just the past few months that have precipitated my thinking about this. I've always found it to be a really interesting topic because I notice that men don't really have stages like these.

For instance, when I taught college Composition, I'd always ask a Question of the Day as the students filed into the room each morning. A little something to get them talking, get them thinking. One day I said, "You do not have to answer this question. You are free to refuse to answer. I refuse to answer it myself. The question is this: How much do you weigh?"

And, as I had predicted would happen, the guys all answered--without hesitation!--and the women did not. Until the last one walked in--she was usually almost late--a tall, thin, very pretty party girl type. I posed the question to her as written above and she said, "110, baby!" and kissed her fingers before slapping her own butt.

So there was one exception.

My point being that I'm not writing out of a one-breasted obsession. I've been obsessed with the subject for a long time.

The stages, I think, are these--though maybe there are more, but there are at least these:

1. Pre-22 stage. The teens-into-college-freshman 15 concerned-who am I?-stage. Let's not even talk about this stage. It is what it is. It was what it was.

2. Then we kind of become adults. In our 20's. Our worlds get bigger. Our responsibilities get more serious. Some of us get spouses, or at least a pet--something to take us outside of ourselves. We get real jobs, and get to know real people who are living real lives--a lot of times, lives much harder than anything we'd ever known.

And the men around us kind of start to grow up, too. They start to realize that looks only count for so much, and they start to pay attention to to qualities like, say, personality and intelligence. And then, interestingly, those of us who always had lots of personality and intelligence, see our stock rise.

But all the while, the voice within that's looking at the woman in the mirror is not saying, "Damn, you're gorgeous." It's saying, in the words of Springsteen, "You ain't a beauty, but, hey, you're all right."-- and it was all right, because you see that life is about so much more than how you look. Your life. Other's lives. The person you fall in love with. The marriage you build. All these massively important and wonderful things find the question of physical beauty to be largely irrelevant.

Meanwhile, that husband who loves you is continually mystified that all the lovely comments he gives you don't seem to count for very much. Why isn't his voice louder than the one in your head? I guess it's because you figure he has to say those things. Or that a big part of the reason he says them is that he's simply blinded by love. . .

3. The next stage happened for me in the mid-20's. I found myself hiking with friends. And coaching a 7/8th grade boys basketball team and, because our numbers were so few, actually playing on the court with them and running lines against them.

Gemma came along after this and with all the physical activity of these few years came a new realization: A body is not just about form. In fact, it's a lot more about function. You get to this point and suddenly the size of your jeans doesn't matter nearly as much as whether you can play outside with your kids all afternoon and still have the energy to cook dinner.

Then you, I don't know, break your ankle, or something, and experience several weeks with dramatically reduced function and you promise yourself, "I will appreciate my health from now on!" and you tell that voice in your head, that is still not thrilled with how you look, that it just needs to shut up because you happen to be enjoying your life a lot.

3. Thrown in there, I think, I hope for most of us, at some point, is the place where you stop counting calories and playing that game with the scale--you know, the one where the scale tells you whether you're going to have a happy day or a bummer day--and instead really tune into your body and discover what food makes it work well, what foods makes you feel crummy, when you are filled up, when you should eat something.

For me, this really happened with the sugar allergy thing almost 3 years ago. And I am so thankful for it.

4. And then, the next stage. The one I just reached 3 days ago. Here I am, at a place of pretty grim physical decimation. The body, the hair, the loss of eyebrows and eyelashes, the palid skin, the reduced muscle tone all over. I'm a real mess at the moment.

I brought some negatives in to be developed. Do you remember negatives?

I had to use them to make baby photos from Josh's birth, back before my mother went digital. And, to boot, I had to develop one of those instant cameras from my trip to Hawaii to see Parin, back in November of 07. (Isn't that pathetic, Parin??? Finally!!)

I got the photos back. There I was. In Hawaii. A "recent" picture in that it's what I looked like just before the diagnosis--hadn't changed that much in 1 1/2 years. And I saw this woman in the photo and thought, "Wow! I am so pretty!!"

In my normal state. The state I'll be getting back to in a few months. . .

Bryan looked at me like I was just. . .crazy. Has he not been telling me this for about 12 years? But that little voice just wouldn't believe it. Until 3 days ago, when I saw it in contrast to what I'm living with now.

So. I think this all totals up to a solid piece of advice, for those of you who would also like to get to this 4th stage:
a) Take a photo of yourself.
b) Get an illness that will leave you temporarily disaster-ized.
c) In the midst of your low point, look at that photo.

Then you, too, will appreciate the great height of your own beauty. And when you get better, that little voice will be gone and you will be free to enjoy yourself just as God's made you.

And this will probably be a very nice relief for the man in your life as well. . . .