I crawled out of bed this morning, stumbled to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and caught sight of my naked self in the mirror. I saw an hourglass shape: large rounded breasts, small waist, lovely curve of tummy, hip and thigh. I saw long, free locks tumbling over my chest and shoulders.
I stopped and stared. I thought, “Wow. I’m really beautiful.”
What??? That’s NOT my usual reaction when I see myself naked.
But this morning I didn’t have my glasses on yet, so I couldn’t see the dimples and ripples and jiggles and sags that usually command my attention. I could only see the outline. The big picture. And it looked pretty darn good to me.
I find it both sad and amusing that at age 57 – deep in menopause, when all hope of rock-hard firmness is gone, when skin elasticity cannot be regained, when my weight is higher than my Wii or my doctor would prefer – that NOW is when I can look at myself and say “Damn, girl, you’re hot.” Why couldn’t my firm, thin young self have known that?
I can blame coming of age in the skinny 70’s, when the ‘ideal woman’ looked like an undernourished pre-adolescent boy with cartoon bosoms. I can blame society, men, women, parents, Hollywood, Argentina, porn…the list of righteous blaming runs long. But blaming moves me into the past. It detracts from the joy of now.
So I put that thought down and step away, consciously choosing to bask in my current self-acceptance rather than wallow in moments gone by. I can’t change them. Why relive them? Much dissatisfaction and even depression comes when I focus on the past or the future. Disciplining myself to the now produces a much more positive paradigm, especially when I look at the big picture.
It’s like the moment in the mirror. When I can’t see all the pesky little details, the overall picture looks pretty perfect. Yes, there are imperfections, some of which can be changed/improved/eliminated and some of which cannot. But if I focus only on the minutia, I lose the beauty of the whole.
So I choose a vision of myself, of my life, and of the world that fills my heart, my soul AND my eyes with joy and self-acceptance. I vow to look at myself – and my life – without glasses more often.
Seeking My Best Self 
I’m glad you’ve found greater peace through judging your appearance less harshly. I’m hoping for the day, however, when it doesn’t occur to us to judge ourselves at all (well, at least no more than men traditionally do as they pause at a mirror before heading out the door). I just find it so sad that for so many of us female types, inner peace ends up being linked so closely with physical appearance. I hate that society judges us by this currency, but I hate even more that we’ve been trained, even in our private moments, to take on the task ourselves. Peace.