I AM ALL ABOUT TEAM MINDY

The word prompt this week is: Selfie.

I actually like taking pictures of myself.  I know that is totally odd.  I am normally the one behind the camera.  Cell phones changed all of that.  I take them all the time.  I tend to only be pleased with the ones in which I am wearing a hat or my sunglasses. I also LOVE picmonkey to alter and *fix* my pictures.  I always *touch up* my pictures.

 

                                                   Cell phone pic.  Only cropped no other retouches. 
The older I get, the more I have come to love my body.  Oh, don't get me wrong!  I can rattle off my *faults* in a heart beat.  See that line between my eyes?  OMG you cannot see it?!?!?  It has been there for years. In my mind you could lay a pencil in it.   It's the first thing I see when I look at myself.  I also hate my teeth, my boobs and how my nails look naturally.

But in my later 40's I have come to learn to be at peace with my body.  It has really served me well.  I have had only one real health scare.  It has birthed two babies.  No broken bones.  10 fingers 10 toes.

I have also learned to love my life.  I have touched on it before.....I was always afraid.  Also thinking some clown was going to jump out from behind the door.  A few years ago I thought *f that*.  I started working on my bucket list.  I started learning how to face my fears.  I learned  to sleep without a cover.  AAhhh...well you can strike that last one.  Everyone knows that if you have a cover on you, nothing can get you while you sleep.  

In June I realized, I am not scared anymore.  

So here I am, rockin' and rolling.  Checking things off my bucket list.  Growing....moving forward.

I have always thought that I am my own worst enemy.  And I thought I had conquered Mindy.

Then I got a phone call this morning.

~ INSERT EERILY FAMILIAR CALM AND YET A TINY OUT OF TUNE THEME MUSIC RIGHT HERE.  JUST ENOUGH TO MAKE THE HAIR STAND UP ON YOUR ARMS~

She used her sweet voice.  The one that sounds like *oh yes I would LOVE to make the cookies for the bake sale thank you SO MUCH for calling me* voice.

" I don't mean this rude.  I don't mean this in a manipulative way.  I don't mean this cruelly but,I don't like the person you have become. I do not like that you are not a sweet caring person anymore.  You have pushed everyone away and no one likes who you have become.  You are trying to reinvent yourself and do things and you do not have to do that.  You are just fine the way that you are. "

         I DON'T LIKE THE PERSON YOU HAVE BECOME.

I calmly told her fine and thank you for your thoughts and hung up the phone.  I was so stunned that I did not even try to argue or defend myself.  There was no reason to.  It would not have mattered. 

I have heard it all before.  She has said different versions of the words as I grew up. " I am so disappointed in you.  You are too fat.  You are  too skinny.  I liked you better fat...you were at least nice then.  I hate that you are not sweet like you were in high school." 

*Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.*

Bullshit.  I would rather see the bruises on the outside.  People do not think they hurt you if they cannot see the bruises.  Words are SO.DAMN.POWERFUL.

I am secure in myself.  I think that is the very first time that I have ever fully realized that.

So I say all of that to say this.....

                                           Infamous bathroom pic.  No retouching...lol...as if you cannot tell.
I refuse to change who or what I am to suit someones idea of beauty anymore.  That means outer or inner beauty.  You are either in my life or out.

And I am fine with either choice that you make.



...those words did wound me....but those words are not mine to hold.