Today I'm Better

This post is, like all my posts, about me. (Which is Em backwards :)

So yesterday as I was getting ready to leave work, a few of my friends posted a link to a blog that looked interesting. "Single Dad Laughing" wrote a post about the self image issues that the media, the people around us, and we as women, give ourselves everyday. Women do not measure up to the standards that the public or the media hold them to. Women do not measure up, because the standard that is flying is a false flag. It is a false ideal. I've known many men and boys in my short life who were kind and generous in many ways. They were not overt in stopping and looking. But they did stop. They looked. I've never blamed any man for doing so, because I too have stopped and looked and wondered.

Magazines and media present women who are desperately unhappy from not eating normally, from living under a microscope, from having to pummel their bodies into submission and from not having stable, loving, families. Consciously I understand that the majority of their lives and bodies in reality are not healthy or ideal. As humans we all strive for love and affection. We see the adulation heaped upon celebrities for their diets, their bodies and their "fabulous" lifestyles. What we cannot see is the lack of faith, trust, love, reliable advice and comfort that so many of them lack. We can see the consequences of the lack of these things and wonder, what went wrong? I'm not talking about the exceptions. I'm talking about the Lindsey Lohans, the Robert Downey Jrs., the Coreys, the Tatum O'Neals, the Jodi Sweetins, the Olsen sisters, and so many others just like them. Some of them have gotten older and salvaged their lives. Others never got there.
So many of these people I watched grow up with me. They had so much more than I did, and SO much less.

I have had a wonderful home life. We never had more. We always had enough. We had love, friends, and family. There was always room for one more person at our dinner table. I was safe.
My mother taught me that I was smart and capable. She taught me to survive in a world that homogenizes anything that stands out and dares to be different. Because I am special. (My mom tells me so.)

I am extremely lucky in having a husband that does not stop and look at magazines or movies. He stops and looks at me. He loves me more than I understand. I am so grateful that to him I am beautiful. Because I am slowly learning that I am more than enough. I am more than beautiful. Having him in my life makes me realized, complete, and perfect. I still struggle with not being the best wife ever. I struggle with knowing that I'm not nice enough. I'm too sarcastic. I nag him. Everyone needs a spouse like mine.

Because of people like him, my mom and dad, and Em I know that I am more than enough.