Love Your Body

Lexie Richards from Dixie Swim Club at Barnstormers Theatre

On New Years Eve, entering 2019, I held a happy and somewhat quiet little shindig at my home.  One of the activities was to design vision boards for the year to come.  On mine, I placed a magazine cut out of a woman's large breasts wearing a lacy bra. No, this wasn't because I was wanting to dabble in any sort of homosexuality leanings, not that there is anything wrong with that, I just don't swing that way.  But, no it was because I was asking the Universe, God, what have you, to bring into my life all that is needed for a breast reduction.  I was ready to do what it took to reduce the balls of flesh hanging from my thin frame.

The thing is, in order to get the procedure covered, you have to prove that its a physical health concern.  And, in some ways, it is, I think. I mean, I do have back pain issues and find it increasingly harder to wear a bra for a considerable amount of time and have to frequently look for new bras as the chest size keeps enlarging itself, although the rest of me appears to lose weight.

Then, in late February of this year, something amazing happened. I got cast in a play that will forever live in my heart, for the character I played (see above photo), the other characters, the bond I formed with the actresses whose stage I shared, the director and crew, and the story-line.  It was at my beloved Barnstormers' Theatre in Grants Pass, Oregon and to date my most beloved role on that stage yet.  The character, Lexie Richards, is a devoted friend to her college swim-mates yet can appear a bit vain, as she continually seeks to stem off the tide of aging by increasingly going under the knife; anything from plastic surgery, breast implants, and buttocks implants.  To this, I joked with my cast and crew, I, the actress, am wanting a breast reduction.  They laughed with me.

But, Lexie, among a myriad of other realities this year, helped heal and transform my views on my body in an unique and powerful way.  Lexie was proud of what she could do to improve her body, yet she was not lacking in intelligence, commonsense, or compassion.  She was a steadfast and loyal confident and companion to each of her four sisters.  She was capable enough to weather many a divorce and to hold a successful business.  In short, she was no ditz.

I took that into my being, as I do any character who truly I become one with, as I continued on in the year.  In my mind, I was still wanting that breast reduction.

But there was a shift in my understanding that affected my desire for the reduction.  I realized I, myself, was hating on my body by wanting this reduction.  I realized that there were still some hold over feelings of disgust from the years of abuse from the church, who basically preached rape culture in that if a guy looks at me lustfully, well, its my fault, and so much more. 

This, and developing feelings for an old flame, led me to a deeper and deeper appreciation of my body as it was given to me.  I have joked with friends that I got my body from my Grandma (who died this last winter).  She, too, was of the top-heavy sort, large breasts, thin every where else, the Barbie Doll Body Variety!  My mother confided in me once that Grandma always had wanted a breast reduction, like me.

But perhaps there is a deeper lesson to learn, one that my dear grandmother Margaret, never was truly able to comprehend.  My large breasts and "Barbie" doll body do not reflect anything negative about me.  My body, this skin suit, that carries all my inner organs about with me, is part of me and always has been.  I can be truly proud as the years have progressed, that I still look as healthy, perky, and, to be blunt, sexy as I do.  This doesn't mean I'm easy or stupid, its just who I am.

For that, I am grateful.  Do I want or need the breast reduction? Time will foretell, but for now, I am growing increasingly more content with who I am and how I look.

Try

You don't have to try so hard
You don't have to, give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don't have to change a single thing

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I Choose Love.

There are always ideas circling through my mind as I prepare to write this weekly blog for you, my readers.  However, I think the most essential idea pressing on me to write is that of the most important necessity for all living creatures.  That of, the four letter L-word, Love.   How fitting that I would write such an entry on the day of love itself, Valentine's Day, the day when Cupid's arrow finds his match, candy hearts are shared, middle school dances become the dream of all romantic 12 year olds with hopeful wishes in their newly hormone-ridden bodies that their crush will finally ask them out. 

So, love.  It is a word seemingly undefinable but purely and completely felt when it arrives.  Yet, love is never far from us, always present, whether we choose to be aware of it at all. 

See, that's the thing.  In a world increasingly falling apart with racism, pollution, the big guy over-powering the little guy, the only real solution is sometimes the last place we often look.  If we are truly to be honest with ourselves, we have to admit that all to often our go-to reaction is to become defensive and retaliate with like-minded slings of abusive arrows in response to those cast at us.  Do we realize that in situations like this there are at least two choices available to us, either to lash out or to love out?

Now, I am in no way suggesting that we allow ourselves to continuously be in the pathway of complete abuse and manipulation.  Coming from a past flooded with a myriad of abusive forms, I highly advocate for escaping and leaving the torturous life-style behind.  All humans have a capacity for emotional changes, from happy feelings of warmth and love, sad feelings, and then those of erupting anger.  Those momentary feeling states do not reflect an overall abusive pattern necessarily.  Being in an abusive relationship, as I know from experience, the anger is an ever-present silent force ready to explode and erupt, nullify and control its victim, at any notice.  This anger can take many forms, that of slews of verbal angry words, the cold silent treatment meant to punish the victim for no such cause, manipulation meant to control and dominate, or even worse, physical abuse.  All leave their own forms of bruises, some visible and others invisible, yet all leave the emotional markings that although freed from the abuser leaves the victim forever scarred.

But, I am not talking about abuse.  I am talking about the moment by moment life occurrences where we are always faced with the opportunity to choose love or to choose hate.  Becoming defensive and retaliating in like fashion is a choice.  Stopping, pulling away, choosing love over hate, is in a sense a moment where we truly stand for ourselves, fully present in mindful awareness. 

And, love is multi-faceted, a woven tapestry of many a color.  In CS Lewis's book, Four Loves, Lewis describes four aspects of love, Agape (Divine Love), Storge (empathy bond), Phileo (Brotherly/friend love), and Eros (Romantic love).  In that, there are many phases one goes through in each of these relational aspects of love.  For infatuation, the early stages of falling for someone, full of its passionate excitement and exhilaration is just as much love as a long-term committed relationship, just as letting go of a lover or a friend, for a variety of reasons, is an aspect of love.  Its all love if done from a pure and honest place.

Just over a week ago, my beautiful Grandma Margaret passed onwards from this world, hopefully to the heaven of which she always professed to believe.  True to fashion, I've been attempting to be still, listen, for guidance from her spirit.  I truly believe that I am surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, spirit guides that have chosen to lead me, give me wise answers and teachings as I journey through life.  These guides I truly believe to be that of my favorite high school teacher, Fernando Nugent, Gilda Radner, Harry Anderson, Evita Peron, Frida Kahlo, Mary Tamm, my Grandpa Walt, and now his wife, my Grandma Margaret.  Along the way, I still feel a kinship to others that have passed on, such as my grandparents on my father's side, but there are certain individuals who have truly joined alongside of me as personal friends across the veil of eternity.

So, what is the message I am receiving from Grandma? Simply this: Always, always choose love. 

So, when I am faced with the darkness of the depravity of an angry, lonely soul and my empath self seeks to flee into the safety of my own protective realm, I choose love, making the active choice to not engage with the negative but embrace the positive, those that are choosing love themselves.  When I am faced with the daily setbacks of life, the financial strain, the driver that cuts me off, not getting called back on an audition...I choose to acquaint myself with love.  I choose to dwell in the state of mind that 'We all have not figured it out quite yet', as Alanis Morrisette croons.  Knowing that we are not all perfect, helps to give perspective in a world vanishing amidst the confusion of too much, too fast, and not enough relational focus on unity and love. 

If we truly want to be the change that infects the world for the better, we need to actively choose to seek out the positive, to choose love and in a sense, be love.

Yes, Grandma, I hear you.  I choose love.

Satisfied