Body, Hunger, Chocolate

When I was seventeen I'd look around at older women, mothers, matronly types with polyester pants stretched tight over their hips, the zipper on the fly exposed because they had tried to stuff themselves into a size too small. In my infinite 17-year old arrogance, I would tell myself "that will never be me." I would never be that...gross. It's all a matter of self control, I'd smugly think, carelessly enjoying the thin body that my genetics gave me. It certainly didn't have anything to do with exercise, or healthy eating, or self control. Not at seventeen.

Cut to today. Grandmom gave Nora and Milo huge beautiful chocolate and peanut butter eggs for easter. One read "Milo" and one read "Nora". Because they're still a little too young for chocolate, I had to make the sacrifice and help them eat the eggs. I had a sleeping Milo in the sling, and I was sitting at the computer responding to emails and eating a giant piece of that giant chocolate egg. I then looked down to see crumbles of chocolate that had melted all over the inside of the sling, Milo's shirt, and Milo's head. I actually woke up my sleeping baby because I was cleaning chocolate patches off of him. This is how low I have sunken.

How did I get from there to here? If I ran into my 17-year old self now, I'd disgust her. The pants are too tight. The shirts are too tight. I have entire sections of my wardrobe that I should just throw out now, because there's no way I'm ever wearing that skin-tight halter top or that bikini ever again.

Oh yeah, I know how I got from there to here. First I got old. Then I got pregnant with twins, and gained 40 pounds. I did that cheerfully, and every pound gained was a pound deliberately gained, as I tried to put on as much weight as I could. This took work because I wasn't hungry during my pregnancy. I was either sick or on a crummy diabetes diet which involved way too many servings of beef jerky and far too few servings of ice cream. Then I delivered the twins and finally learned what nursing hunger is all about. I am hungry and thirsty all the time, all day long and all night long. The next thing I know, it seems like a good idea to inhale a giant chocolate and peanut butter egg after having already eaten a complete lunch. A lunch that involved sour cream.

The babies are 3.5 months old by now, and yet my body is nowhere near back to where it used to be. When I was pregnant I went to a conference in Providence. The conference organizer was both beautiful and exceptionally thin, and I was surprised to learn that she had a 3-month old baby. She told me that my body would return to its normal state, or more realistically, "within epsilon of normal." Curses, I believed her. It worked for her, why not for me?

I know it's time to stop inhaling chocolate eggs and time to start breaking out the jogging stroller. I also know, or suspect anyway, that my body will never look the way it used to look. There's just too much...stuff around my middle. Is it skin, is it fat? What makes up this strange shelf that hangs over my giant scar? I don't know, but I doubt it's going to disappear for good. Even if it does, the stretch marks don't look like they're going anywhere. So I have to calibrate to a new normal.

And you know what, that's okay. The shelf is creepy, but I find that I look at the shelf, and then I look at Milo. I look at Milo's wrinkled forehead and his giant eyes. I look at the stretch marks, and then I look at Nora's upturned nose, and her tiny perfect mouth. So this imperfect lumpy body made these two perfect little people. The tradeoff is worth it. It's a trade I was begging to make for years. So it's okay.

I think.

(Above -- a picture of me at age 31, pre babies, and a picture of me the day after the babies were born).