It’s 3:30 a.m. I’m tossing a turning again, beads of sweat rolling between my shoulder blades and breasts…again. I forgot to take magnesium when I was winding down for the evening…again. I’m dreading the alarm clock going off in just a few short hours and waking up groggy to the never-ending list of tasks that mount for a working mother of three. Most of all, I’m unsure, again, if my body will succumb to sleep during the next few minutes or if I’m doomed to restlessness before rolling out of bed to face the day.
There are moments in life when perspective shifts.
It would be easy to turn against my body, to despise her at every turn for changing up the game without my consent, but I don’t feel any type of way toward her for doing what she was made to do.
At nearly 41, I find myself entering perimenopause and joining the ranks of countless women who’ve gone before me in a sacred and ancient rite of passage, shedding a youthful dewy glow for laugh lines that hopefully reveal I didn’t take myself as seriously as I thought I did. Embracing power naps in the early afternoon just to make it through the witching hour between school and bedtime routines. Finding a few more strands of hair than I’d like around the drain at the bottom of the shower stall, and grasping for words I know my brain has stored but can’t quite access through the fog in the moments when I need them most.
But I’ve always been one of—if not the—youngest in the room, making a beeline for the wise sages, sitting at their feet to glean all I can and longing for the day I’d become like them. Simultaneously, I’ve also tended to feel older than my age, no doubt an unfortunate result of parentification. In a way, I feel as if I’m finally the age I feel I am and in the stage of life I’ve been looking forward to the most. It doesn’t come without its challenges and new navigational skillset, yet I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own body.
When I accompany my daughter to the dressing room to try on clothes and I see the familiar look on her face at the first outfit she tries on, the face I’ve worn myself that conveys despondence and a fear that nothing she tries on is going to fit “right,” I remind myself that she gets to traverse these waters differently than I did.
I want her to know she’s at the beginning of a complex relationship she’ll have with her body and that she’ll have to contend with internal voices that reflect external societal messages. Messages that prop up dominant culture as the standard of beauty—thin but curvy and lighter skin preferred. She’ll have to contend for a compassionate eye toward the mirror rather than an eye that would have her zero in on all that appears flawed, lest she become blind to what makes her unique and lovely.
So I take every chance I get to show her my stretch marks and tell her the stories of carrying her in my belly, what she craved and how it felt when she had the hiccups, all the while reminding myself and my own body that we have lived a life, and, Spirit willing, we will continue to forge a new relationship that isn’t reliant upon the unrealistic expectation of anti-aging.
I’m not naive in believing this is how all women experience this particular stage of female development. Even so, I want a different narrative and way of relating with my body as she changes than I had previously, which was all but absent entirely and, in the void, left me with a tumultuous and often harmful way of viewing my body and comparing her to bodies around me. This left me feeling inadequate and powerless as to how to be in relationship with my body and listen to what she’s saying when she’s tired, hungry, lonely, or in need of a little sunshine and vitamin D.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” This is my season for shedding postures of body image that no longer suit me, postures that are not kind or compassionate toward the gift my body has been for me and for countless others—the way she’s held me upright, wept when needed, and comforted those entrusted to my care; the burdens she’s borne and ways she’s adapted in order to survive. This is the season for gazing lovingly at the shade of her melanin, the plump of her lips, and the curve of her hips. For nurturing her skin with oils and creams and adorning her with accessories and jewelry. For thanking her for all the ways I’ve yet to learn how incredible she’s been to me.
Vanessa Sadler is a trauma-informed Spiritual Director and Enneagram Specialist. Through her company Abide (@abidinginstory), she collaborates with clients who seek deeper abiding and a greater understanding of the ways they relate with God, self and others. Vanessa has Level I and Level II certificates in Narrative Focused Trauma Care from The Allender Center, located within the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and also offers Integrated Story Work to her clients along with a culture identity component.
Vanessa, this is beautifully resonant for me as a 45yo mama with two teen daughters. The messaging I ingested at their ages and have carried with me these decades have all but killed me from the inside out at times. Your reminders to embrace the truth of my body’s goodness—and to send healthier messages to the next generation—are welcome here! Thank you.
Lacey, I’m so grateful this resonated for you in such a tender and glorious phase of life, and with two teenage daughters, no less. May it be so!