"Real Women Have Curves... Not the body of a fifteen year old boy."

I just joined a facebook group with the name above because I thought the title was funny. I don't necessarily enjoy my curves one hundred percent of the time and I thought it would be mentally uplifting to become part of a group that did enjoy their curves. Perhaps it would make me more appreciative of what I have. The whole group was nothing but trash talking between fat people and thin people. Pure hatred going back and forth. All the thin posters said that "curvy" was just code for fat. They used words like "fattie" and "rhino". It was ugly and hateful. They made assumptions like all curvy women have diabetes or all curvy women cheap horny women just looking for some. The curvy women were just as bad. In the end I left the group after only being a member for a couple of minutes.

I did a search for groups that represented curvy women in a positive light and couldn't find any. All I could find were groups of skinny women calling other women fat and so called curvy women calling skinny women all kinds of terrible things. The interesting thing is, most of the women who had posted pictures on this group I wouldn't even consider over-weight and I got to wondering if anyone stopped to even look at these women. I am 5'6" and 177lbs. I've been this weight for almost 6 years. The medical world considers me overweight but not obese. I think most of the women who had posted pictures on this group had a lower percentage of body fat than I did. And people were on there calling them "hippos". One person said it was "easier to hit like than to go out and exercise".

Suddenly these women who are trying desperately to like themselves and be proud of who they are were being attacked not because they were being physically unhealthy but because they had the gall to try and be emotionally happy. One thing I don't think any of these women understand is that becoming emotionally happy is the first step to becoming physically happy. If these women are supported in their lives to becoming emotionally happy  they will become strong enough to be physically healthy.

I wish these women, both skinny and curvy find the strength they need to be happy and healthy and like themselves regardless of the world around them.

The World Doesn't Stand Still

It is almost midnight. Summer break so the kids are all still up. They are watching something on the internet that has them all cracking up. I watched a silly horror movie with Kevin Costner in it. I ate Taco Bell for dinner with a large Mountain Dew. Tomorrow Keira starts her acting classes and Donovan has a dentist appointment. Maybe Barnes and Noble with call me about an interview. It seems as if nothing is different. Everything is good, right?

The fact is my mom called at 2 this afternoon and told me I should drive to Deming because she wasn't going to make it through the night. She knew she was going to die. Arianna came with me, so brave for a ten year old to face what very well may be the death of a loved one. She knew the implications and came anyway. I went. Not because I thought my mother was going to die but because I knew if she did and I wasn't there I would never forgive myself. I told Mike is was like prophylactic guilt protection. I didn't go to what I called the Death Watch because I wanted or needed to say goodbye to her or because I didn't want her to be alone but because I knew I would feel guilty if I wasn't there.

All the grief that a daughter can feel bottled up into one crystalline moment that shatters when my mother said "I made a mistake, I didn't really need you. Go home."

And so here I sit, the world still turning and everything feeling all normal as if it will go on like this forever. But it won't because one day she really will die and what if that guilt isn't enough to sucker me into her drama next time... or the time after that... or the time after that.