OUR BODIES: Taking up room and societal control

             I have been reflecting a lot lately about body size and how women try so hard to be as diminutive as possible and are always working at getting smaller and smaller and smaller...and in essence, we strive to take up less and less room on this planet and how that very aim strongly shapes how we see ourselves and how we see our roles in the world. 
              
              I have seen and experienced a lot of couples in the past few months and have noticed an interesting trend. The women and men are often drastically different in size. Often, you will see a man 6 foot plus, sometimes even grossly overweight, paired with a woman sized at basically nothing. This may sound like I am making light of it, but I am a visual person, contrast calls to me when I see it. One might think all women strive to be size nothing, yet, in the past 10-12 months I have been exploring what it's like to take up space, like these men, and more importantly trying to see how aiming at taking up space changes my behavior. I have been steadily going to the gym and lifting weights for about a year now and I have had to buy new bras to accommodate for my bigger chest. These new purchases were tough. Buying bigger clothes felt like a failure, it went against everything I have been taught to be as a woman in modern society, in modern society women don't strive to be bigger, that strive to be smaller, so this whole buying experience was not pleasant or easy. Yet, the bigger, more muscular body opened new doors for me in how I interacted with others, in my confidence and even as something as simple as my stance. Suddenly,  despite all I kept hearing, it was okay to feel right in my body and this was so thrilling, so new, so powerful. And if you are a women reading this, we all know how it feels to inhabit our body and yet feel like we are constantly on display for others; that is just how society brought us up to think of ourselves, sadly. 

            So the reflection continues. Daily, I strive to own the space I occupy and own my actions, my movement and drop the self-consciousness we've all grown to carry at all times. I have observed men and how they live free of such constant and caged thoughts and I want a piece of that, I want to be like that. I want to move around my space with confidence and comfort and own every moment, every space.  But as I gain confidence in myself I see how my new-gained demeanor gives off an aura of non-approachability. I now know what my single friend complain about in the current dating world; one in which a confident woman has less chances of finding a partner, for she often scares away potential suitors with an unfamiliar characteristic most men have not been trained to work with, that being confidence. This, reveals an interesting societal chemistry among men and woman, one in which size, confidence and control all play part of the same dance. I am not a number gal, but surely there must exist some universal formula out there in which these three factors all affect each other in fascinating ways, ways we may never clearly know. 

            What I do know though is that I am on the right track to freedom from these societal messages of which we have all been programed. I take up room in so many ways, with my movements, with my body, with my words. I take up room with my movements by running where I want, at whatever times I want, and in whatever weather I please. I take up space with my body by freely chasing my athletic dreams despite not looking like traditional athletes, I take up room in my desires for my life by fanning the flames of my dreams and daily, chiseling towards them. I take up room with my opinions and my words, always fearless and full of conviction, in all actions. 

***Do you feel there is a connection between how we are taught to strive for small and societal control over women overall?
              

I am 43....older and wiser baby!!

                I am 43 and a day and I feel the happiest I have ever felt. Now, don't confuse the word "happiest"with what most people consider trouble-free, or ecstatic living even. I am simply at peace, that is my definition of happy. For as long as I remember I've been trying to change things outside and inside of me and all of the sudden all of those concerns have melted away with time, with only one central focus in mind, peace. For as long as I remember I've been trying to change my body, change my style, change my hair, change the way I am friends with people.....all in the spirit of "I cannot possibly be doing it right all along". Yet, maybe it's the age, or maybe it's the lack of results that so much trying brings, but suddenly I don't want to go that route anymore. There is a certain fearlessness about being 43 that brings me so much more energy and strength. and those are reasons enough to stop trying.

              Another reason I am super happy is that my long term mysterious injury on my right foot seems to have disappeared, or at least lessened. When you love running as much as I do, it's so depressing not being able to run, to really move and feel your powerful legs beat beneath you. The way I have been preventing injury these days is running 90% of my run at a comfortable aerobic pace, and then sprinting the last 10%. That way I still get that high that one gets from pushing hard, but I do it on a body that's already warmed up and ready to go. As an aside, I would not say I am back 100% yet. I have not really taken my runs out on the road and even on the 'dread'mill I have not added an incline to my runs. For now, it's just running without all the other technical things I will need in a trail race, but, trying really hard to continue running and no re-injuring myself. 

             One advantage of being older (by society's standards that is...for I do not feel a day over 22) is the ability to see that sexy is an amorphous thing which the viewer and the entity being viewed can easily manipulate without the need to do much of anything but change ones mind. I have experienced women larger than me, even less fit than me strut their shit with so much confidence, so much pride that it literally changes my experience of them. When you strut sexy, people see sexy. It has NOTHING to do with body size, clothing, make-up, age....nothing. We all have the ability to pretty much control how others see us, no matter what size out body is. Young people sadly often lack this knowledge and try super hard to look as sexy as they want to feel. While this is an admirable goal, it leads us to such misery and self-loathing. I have tortured myself for years trying to look as sexy as I wanted to feel and all it brought me was a distorted sense of self and low self-esteem, plus it's exhausting. 

Lessons in the Nature of Confidence

                 This morning I woke up totally convinced I would pull myself out of the 50K race I have signed up for in October 2013. There is something about the mornings that make me doubt every bit of myself and this morning I came very close to actually caving under the pressure of my ever-creeping fears. I ended up rolling myself out of bed anyway and getting my butt out the door. After completing 10 miles I was beaming and once again my confidence was filled. The confidence is so short lived though and only going out and running again can replenish that confidence. At this point I will continue to follow my training program, and set aside all fears of potential logistical issues I perceive will pop once I start working again and the increasing milage. I will let those future problems be tackled as they arise, later, and hope that my growing strength will help boost my confidence. 

  

                 Regardless of what happens with this decision on the 50K race, these struggles with confidence have been so revealing on the flimsy nature of confidence. I could have easily cowered to my fears and given up. But each time I push past those fears and go for a long run, I am again fully replenished. How amazing to discover that lack of confidence is only a smokescreen; the more I ignore it the more it melts away to nothing.