i have big calves

I am an optimist. I look on the bright side always. I find good in hard situations. I don’t worry about broken things. I give people the benefit of the doubt every time.  I stick up for people who may only have a slim chance of being an okay person. I compliment, see the beauty and admire the good.

But damn it if I can look at myself and do the same.

My mom was perfectly imperfect at raising me. One of the things I’ll never know how she achieved, was my body image.  I can’t say that I’m a heavy person, but I’m not built very petite or small either. Yet somehow I never saw those features. I never noticed a difference. However. When I was about 15, I remember being at track practice and having a boy make the comment “why are your calves so huge..?”

The shell I lived in shattered. To hell with that boy.

I looked in the mirror that night and stared at my calves.

I went to school the next day and gawked at girls around me. I DID have big calves. Big calves that ran into big ankles, that collided into big, wide feet.

Why did everyone else get to have dainty features? I started pulling at the skin around my wrists and calves and ankles, wondering if I could pin them back somehow to create an allusion of “small”.. other girls had thin wrists, small calves, tiny ankles and I felt like a monster.

I started contorting myself in pictures. When I stood, I’d roll the sides of my feet under to attempt to make my feet look less wide.

I remember my mom making the allusion that some people are born greyhounds and I was born a bulldog. At this point, I figured all that I had going was a fun personality.

I hate that one comment messed things up. Messed up the beautiful light my mom put up, that I had perceived myself in before.

My senior year I had another experience. A boy paused, looking at my calves and said “Marlee, you have big calves.” At this point of my life I had received that idiotic comment enough to respond with snottiness and irritation and typically could find a way to belittle someone for being so dense. But as I began going off, he stopped me and said.. “It’s not a bad thing, they’re beautiful…”

Never had I ever. Hm.

That comment changed my attitude very slightly. For the first time, someone had made me feel like my build wasn’t something I should be ashamed of. That it could possibly be admired. (Not that my mom hadn’t attempted to make me see this, but again, it’s crazy how much a boys’ comment can affect you)

Fast forward through my college years where I received more positive comments about my body and gained appreciation for my thick thighs and big booty. To finding an adorable boy who I told myself hadn’t really looked at me yet. Who, that maybe, if I made him laugh enough, cooked him good food, and if I talked enough so he wouldn’t find a moment to look down and see my flaws, that that boy would never have to know my insecurities.  I could cover them up and act like they weren’t there. I didn’t want to talk about them with him, I didn’t want to let him in on something that made me dark, and upset.

But then, that boy loved me.

AND he loves my calves. And every other inch of me.

Here I am. Someone who still has dark moments of self hate and anger at this body that allows me to do so much.

This body is amazing. It is me. It is beautiful and I love it most of the time now. I love that I am strong and I can pick things up on my own and I’m not a weak girl who isn’t capable and so does my husband. I love that I rarely get sick and that I’m healthy and I have constant energy and vigor for life. I love that I enjoy different food and can/do eat a lot and don’t regret it. I love my big butt and my thick thighs and I’m about 90% okay with my calves, and I’m working on it.

So this is more of a long term goal. It’s a story that continues. The trek of being truly happy with ALL OF THE BODY that God gave me.

Until then, I live for the boy who tells me my face is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen when I’m happy and teases me that he loves me even if I think I’m fat and ugly that day. He gets me.