The Warrior Marks Formerly Known As Stretch Marks

I have felt bad about myself for the majority of the summer. I have felt guilty for my “lack of activity”.

Here is the thing...I like neither heat nor bright sunlight. Once autumn is in full swing I plan to spend epic amounts of time outdoors. I will exercise and I will keep a much cleaner house.  I will dress for the day even when going nowhere and I will open the curtains and embrace the world. Till then, I plan to live in cool pajamas in front of two fans in my air conditioned house with my curtains pulled tight. When I leave to go for groceries or to work at the church I plan to run from car air conditioning to church/Wal-Mart air conditioning while wearing sunscreen, weather inappropriate clothing (Because no one wants to see my post-baby body in a tank top and shorty shorts. Covering up is my service to the world.) and the darkest sunglasses imaginable. All this to say, I HATE SUMMER. 

I have decided to stop feeling guilty about my inactivity this summer. I have a chronic illness, I have a baby and I’m sensitive to heat. I am doing what I can to survive. Now, having said this, don’t think I haven’t kept my family in clean clothes and well fed with what is usually really healthy food. It’s just that if it isn’t necessary, I’m putting it off. The house is sanitary…but with a toddler whose main goal in life is to destroy, eat, disassemble or climb anything in her purview it’s hard to keep up with when you have fatigue issues. My main goal is to keep her alive, healthy and well-developed emotionally. If the formerly perfectly organized basket of diapering supplies winds up splattered across the floor I prefer to use my energy to be in a good mood for her instead of trying to reorganize it 32 times during the day. She will just take it as a challenge to pull out all the diapers and spread them across the room again.

In addition to no longer feeling guilty for a cluttered house, I plan to stop feeling guilty about my body not being as thin as it was when I got married. That dress size took starvation…and I need the energy that food provides in order to keep up with the Lil’ Miss. Also, I plan to no longer look in the mirror at my stretch marks and C-section scar and sigh in disgust. Stretch marks are a beautiful thing even if our culture disdains them.

I have decided to start calling mine my “warrior marks”. I have had a difficult time dealing with my changed body and coming to terms with it. While yes, it is a constant reminder of the beautiful child I carried within my body (and the C-section scar is a reminder of how you cannot truly control anything in life, especially not your children) it is sometimes difficult to look at myself without feeling somehow disappointed with myself for my appearance…like I should be better than to have these marks or to not have lost the weight. 

Our culture has “learned” what motherhood looks like from celebrities who spend thousands on reconstructive surgery, trainers and laser treatments. This is disingenuous and creates an unfair expectation of ourselves and each other. It doesn’t matter that we know they’ve had work done. When we see a famous size 2 back in her jeans two weeks after giving birth it makes us look in the mirror and think all sorts of negative things about ourselves. It doesn’t matter that I have NEVER fit in a size 8, let alone a size 2. A part of me sees these hyper skinny moms in the tabloids, showing their air brushed abs and going on and on about how “I breast fed and the weight just FELL off…” and I want to scratch their eyes out. 

We have a little extra skin, we have a few extra scars and we have a few extra pounds (or more than a few…) and you know what…that’s is okay…we did something amazing and our body went through trauma to do it. Women should wear these beautiful warrior marks proudly to remind us of the incredible thing we created--life.