the Dove women

Real women have real curves.

I'm not fat, but I'm well padded in all the appropriate places for an avid horseback rider.

I think I went straight from girls 14's into juniors 7/8. Woke up one day with hips, I did. Now I'm trying to figure out the logic behind the small leap from juniors 7/8 to women's size 8. I think it has something to do with sitting in front of a computer all day for a living, and a little to do with having two children. But probably mostly due to never learning how to cook and eating far too much junk food.

Not that a women's 8 is big. (Marilyn Monroe had more badonkadonk, depending on what source you believe.) Just that I don't feel like me in this body. I am convinced I should be the size I was in high school, when I could still eat an entire pizza for dinner, and still look good in acid washed miniskirts and big hair. (At least I thought I looked good. For the 80's.)

I exercise ... you can call walking to the office from the farthest parking space in the lot that, right? I lift weights ... horse hay, laundry baskets, groceries, the occasional sleeping kid. I work out every day ... lots of stretching and aerobic breathing to get a size 10 body into those size 8 jeans I refuse to give up.

Now I just need to eat better.

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Sorry, a bit of chocolate fell on my keyboard.

today

I drove in to work with my hard rock music cranked up loud, screaming through speakers not meant for quality output at that volume, trying to convince myself I'm not old. "Survival of the Sickest" is blaring and I'm singing along, much to the amusement of the truck drivers I fly past at 76 mph on the interstate.

It is the 5th anniversary of my 29th birthday. For someone once convinced they wouldn't make it to 21, that's old. But for someone who has only really lived for the past five years, it's young.

The worst of it all ... a woman's greatest fear: I look my age. I don't get carded, and I couldn't pass for early twenties, even with my flare leg mid-rise jeans and slim stretchy print tops and chunky heeled boots. I hope I don't look like I'm trying too hard to look young ... but I sure don't feel mid-30's. I don't feel like a soccer mom, either, but there's my Vue outside ... a cross between a station wagon and a small SUV. I have parent-teacher conferences today with my son's 5th grade teacher (wasn't he just 5 yesterday?) and my daughter's 2nd grade conference (gosh she was just a baby) is the day after tomorrow.