After I delivered my first child, I went for my six-week check-up. My doctor took one look at me, checked my charts, and remarked, “Looks like you just went through ovulation. You have hips now.” And she laughed. I wasn’t laughing. My body had changed. I had gone all those years being skinny, wearing guys’ jeans. Now I had hips, curves and all. I looked different. Laugh if you will. I was suddenly looking like a woman. It was a new sensation. I didn’t know how to cope.
Child Two and Three brought on more changes. By the time I was finished breastfeeding child number three, I was now not only with curves, but actually had breasts for the first time in my life. As I sit here writing this, my children are now adults. I have this figure I could never have dreamt of as a teen-ager. Perhaps that is the good thing. I am not fat, nor am I thin. I am nicely padded, I would say. I balance between a size ten and a twelve. Except for the top. I am top heavy. Which is funny for someone who used to be called surfboard.
I tell the story to my friends now. And they all laugh. And ask to see pictures of me back then. Telling me, that’s impossible. You see, perhaps I was horribly thin. Perhaps I didn’t have any resemblance to a girlish figure. Perhaps I looked age twelve as a senior. But now? Now I have men telling me that I am a woman who has beauty and brains. And why haven’t I been “scooped up”?
My independence has stayed. That was imprinted on me. And the older I became, the more influences I had. The moment I talked to Bella Abzug in the Capital, speaking to a diplomat in Paul Young’s in DC, being invited to speak about vintage clothing on a cable show, being honored with a point of light, receiving awards, re-building my body and mind after being involved in four motor vehicle totals as a passenger, surviving a murder attempt, making friends around the world ... all of the times that were spent building my character made me stronger. They made me see me for whom I am. And I am not a woman to be “scooped up.” I don’t ever wish for that. I like me. Frankly, I don’t allow many into my world. And I like it that way. After all, love is like a dead rose.
You see, everything catches up eventually. And if you are a humble person, and really just take care of yourself for yourself, and don’t preen, you always will be beautiful. Because inside of you, a good heart remains a good heart.
