I don’t know if any of you are really reading this. I kind of disappeared off the face of the Earth, so I don’t expect you to be. It feels strange coming back to blogging after leaving like I did.
Some shit happened last summer that left me feeling pretty exhausted from this whole world. So I quit. But now I’m here because I missed the group of stellar ladies I met doing it. I met Maria, Lauren, Jes, Caroline, and so so so many others. And I feel pretty lame for letting all of that go because I went through a weird time.
So I don’t know if any of my old readers are reading this, but if you are, I just want to say hey. And I hope you’re still fighting the daily battle of complete and total self love. Because that’s really the only thing worth blogging about at this point.
In my hiatus, I couldn’t help but feel completely crippled by the endless barrage of bullshit the world throws at women day in and day out. I mindlessly perused an issue of Women’s Day at a family member’s house today out of boredom and was completely blown away at the weight loss ads in between recipes in between weight loss tips in between tampon ads in between more weight loss ads and tips and empty promises, all tinged with a nice dash of subliminal messaging to say, “hey, you’re really not that great. you could be better. and prettier. and thinner. and leaner. and here’s a bathing suit to make you feel not that shitty. and on and on and on and on and on.”
And that was just the span of 10 minutes at a Mother’s Day party. And for the last 6 months of my hiatus, I’ve been floundering and feeling the weight of these messages that find their way into every TINY aspect of our lives. It’s in the office lunchroom, it’s in the stores, it’s in the family parties and the girl nights and walking down the street and seeing something triggering. It’s completely inescapable. And I kind of crumbled.
Which was the main reason for me letting the tumbleweeds fill this space. All the sudden I couldn’t find my self love. I spent 6ish years out of rehab fighting fighting fighting FIGHTING ALL DAY LONG to get where I was. And then I found myself sliding. And I couldn’t blog because I had lost my voice. And with that I lost my struggle and will to fight it.

Mostly I just want to know why women can’t help other women out. We’re all fighting this constant struggle every day, so why are we tearing each other down? And why are we letting this happen? Why do we join in on the body shaming and the name calling and the endless self torment? We act like it’s normal and that’s just how we as women are doomed to feel. But…it’s not. And I guess I’m left feeling so entirely baffled that I have to fight this hard just to feel ok. Why do we all perpetuate this myth that women have to be whatever message the corporation flavor of the day is selling? We do it to ourselves by mindlessly allowing it to happen.

Basically, I just REALLY want to know why it should be THIS hard to feel good about yourself. If we all just helped each other out and stopped ourselves from complaining about our thighs or listing every minute morsel of food in our stomach from the day or bitched about another woman because she intimidated us somehow…maybe if we just calmed the hell down and realized that we DON’T have to act like the women society has portrayed us to be…maybe we’d all be ok.
You don’t have to hate yourself. We as women are not doomed to a fate of self hatred and weight loss. We don’t have to buy those magazines and buy into whatever schemes corporate America has planned for you next. Let’s just all calm down, step outside of ourselves, and make someone feel GOOD about themselves. Because I’m willing to bet most women feel pretty terrible about themselves on a daily basis. So what if we just for ONCE in our lives, said something positive and NOT body/food/diet related to each other?
Women are much more than what they eat or what they do in their workout or how great they look in their jeans. We are human beings with brilliant minds. Let’s talk about anything other than hating on other women and ourselves. Just once. JUST ONCE! Just try it. You might like not feeling like shit about yourself for once in your life.
aaaaand…end rant.
I just want to feel ok about myself for once. And I want you to feel that, too. And I just want women to wake up and realize they don’t have to perpetuate this myth. Go read The Beauty Myth. Go liberate yourselves. And for once let’s not tear other women down. We’re all in it together. And we’re all fighting the beauty myth together.
I can’t fight this fight anymore when women everywhere refuse to fight with me. And I know any person worth a damn would tell me that’s not a good way to feel because I need to radically accept that I can never change the world and all I can change is myself. But guess what? It’s REALLY hard to handle the daily barbs from left and right on my self-esteem. And sometimes you just want to give up, you know?
If you made it to the end of this post, I commend you. And I hope you’ll leave a little comment just to let me know you’re here and that I’m not speaking to space. And if I am, that’s cool, too. Just be good to yourself and other women. Myself included.
Until next time…
