Two weeks ago Saturday, I did a photo shoot. Not your average "pretty family with a blue background" type, but one where, at one point, I was wearing thigh-high stockings on the beach.
I have seen five of the pictures now, of the seven that are being cropped and edited. I have been both amazing and excited. Relieved and undone. Proud and sad.
The happy emotions come from the plethora of wonderful comments, outpouring of generous words spilling into cyberspace just below the posted photos. Women I know, men I don't, and everything in between saying words like "peaceful", "serene", "warm", "beautiful". That's where I get stuck. Beautiful. Um, yeah. Beautiful. Not on my usual list of self-adjectives.
I have tried, without much success over the past 4 decades, to come to terms with my body. I was a fat kindergartner, a fat school-age kid, a fat high-schooler. I graduated from college fat, I got married fat, I had kids fat. I got divorced fat. I've had sex fat, gone dancing fat, worked out fat. I get dressed daily, fat. I cook dinner for my kids, fat. I have coffee with my skinny friends, fat. What I never wanted to do is get my photo taken, fat.
There are not many pictures of me with my exes. I have exactly two pictures with my "drama" boyfriend. I have only one with another. My first ex-husband never thought of me as fat, and did tell me he thought I was beautiful. That felt great, and was still not enough to keep infidelity from rearing its ugly head in our relationship. I have a wonderful picture of the two of us, on our wedding day, in the prettiest dress I have ever worn, with him looking amazing in this tuxedo, looking at each other and smiling. I had it blown up to an 8x10. It is now folded in half, in a box in my garage, with a lot of other things I can't quite part with. I smashed the crystal frame it was in during our marriage the day he left. I can remember looking at that picture that day, and hating ever part of it, and thinking to myself that I looked fat, without the happy-veil I had placed over it.
My children's father never wanted to have his picture taken with me. There are lots and lots of pictures of one or the other of us, at camp, at holidays, at random drunk intervals. There are pictures of the kids, me with the kids, him with the kids, family with the kids. I have a wonderful picture of the two of us, with my daughter on my lap, 7 months pregnant with my son, all of us smiling and happy as we waited for our tour to begin at Hearst Castle. I had it framed and hung it on the hallway wall with other pictures I loved that were not of me. He told me during a rant one time that he hated that picture because it reminded him too much of the woman who took the picture, the woman he had an affair within a week after the picture was taken, and that I looked fat. I think that picture is in the same box with my wedding picture.
So when I first saw the work that a friend of mine was doing, and the amazing photographer she has aligned herself with, I was sure there was not a way in hell I would ever get close to doing THAT. Professional picture of me, fat. Not a chance. And then I softened, started taking care of my own needs, and decided to risk all of it for the chance of making myself so self conscious and miserable that I would die.
I confess, that I looked at them first through the filter of two failed marriages, years of being told I wasn't anything close to pretty, much less stunning, and my own twisted expectations of other peoples' reactions. I looked and found the flaws in my body and hair and shape of my face because I was looking at it with fear and self-loathing and self-esteem so low that it was making me hold my breath.
What I got was amazing. What I got was freeing. What I got was beautiful. Yes, beautiful. I look beautiful. I feel beautiful. I am beautiful. The pictures are of me. Me. Beautiful scenery and me. The beach and me. Some of my clothes and me. Yep, me.
So that explains the pride. What about the sad? Oh that comes now from feeling like I could have been there all along if I had given myself the chance. I am letting that go. Maybe the sad will go into the box with those old photos, but I don't think so. I am ready to let go of that, if not yet the photos. Maybe I might even take out the photos again and look at myself differently, through my new beautiful eyes and offer myself some forgiveness and self praise.
Nah, not taking out those old photos! I am going to show and look at the new photos and rest here on my happy beautiful laurels for just a while.
