Just the way you are.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with my body. With my teenage years riddled with a lot of insecurities and acceptance and self love gradually seeping in in the later years.

From body hair to fat in places where we have been told we should not have fat to cellulite to tea shaded skin - a deadly combo of insecurities has been hammered in from childhood. A stray remark is not stray for the person it’s targeted at. It makes them take out the mirror of insecurities which always reflects the worst in each person. It doesn’t show the cute dimples or the way your eyes sparkle when you meet your loved ones. It just shows back a portrait of unappreciated features. It distorts your perception of reality as you lose sight of all the goodness in you.

I thought I’d mostly come out of this rabbit hole by embracing myself fully for myself, as I am. Even during pregnancy, I loved how I looked. I loved my big life giving tummy. I didn’t mind the stretched skin. Oh and I was definitely in for the lustrous hair and clear face pregnancy gifted me in the last trimester. I felt truly empowered during this time.

Then I gave birth and things happened to the body that nothing prepares you for. The stretched skin left stretch marks. Skin sagged as my bub moved from the safety of my womb to my arms. Why don’t we discuss more how the tummy will be adamantly out there chilling for sometime instead of immediately going to its pre baby state? My hair was no longer lush. It immediately turned brittle and I started shedding like it’s autumn on my head. The skin is now back to the pimple pool party state. And then, the cherry on the cake- people begin telling you how fat you have become and how you need to lose weight and get back in shape.

Hello, I took nine months to grow a human who violently exited my body. My body had taken a hit nourishing and then bringing life into the world. It continues to nurture by being the source of nourishment for this new life. But all that matters is the extra kgs? I am sick of how women are made to feel like shit. Even in their most vulnerable moments.

I don’t want to get into this loop. I don’t want my daughter hearing one negative word out of my mouth about my body. She’s definitely going to hear from others how women are never enough in their own bodies, how they are too fat or skinny or hairy or dark or pale. Never beautiful until they exactly fill the mold society made for them. One which requires them to go through incredible pain as they get waxed and threaded and augmented and injected till they become Frankenstein’s diva.

Z, you are the most beautiful thing in my life. But it’s not your skin color or face that makes you beautiful. It’s just all of you- your breathtaking smile, your little spontaneous giggles, the curiosity in your eyes as you intently absorb everything around you, the way you turn your little head till I exit your line of vision as I leave the room…you are enough and more my love. Like Bruno Mars says, just the way you are.

And to anyone who comes trying to make you feel less, tell them to come see your mamma.