Day 29: Every body bathing in Bath

So my blog post from Friday - 'Adios to arm envy' - opened the floodgates in my mind. Just as well I'd resolved to have a mobile phone- and computer-free weekend or I would have blogged for Britain over the past few days. Of course, I can't remember all the thoughts that came up but I do remember having some flashbacks to some painful moments in my teenage years: picking up the clumps of hair from my pink bedroom carpet, feeling dizzy after netball because I'd barely eaten all day and, after I'd put on a bit of weight, buying clothes a size too small in the hope I'd slim into them. I also clearly remember a comment from a teacher after I'd come home from a three-week student exchange visit to Spain, aged 16. "What happened to you?" the teacher asked as she pointed to my newly acquired curves. I'd been so unhappy and lonely on that trip that I'd done some serious overeating and my weight gain was noticeable. Kids can be cruel, but teachers can be too.

Through my late teens, university and beyond, far too much time was devoted to trying to lose that excess weight and too much headspace was taken up with thoughts about my 'imperfect' looks. By then, though, I was trapped in a cycle of starving, over-exercising, binge-eating, binge-drinking and body obsession. I should add here that those years weren't all bad - I had some great times, made wonderful friends and had amazing experiences. But it's sad that so much of my focus was on my appearance and it's sad that my self-esteem was so low. It's equally sad and worrying to think there are other young girls, teenagers and women of all ages who are going through the same thing and are maybe trapped in a similar destructive cycle. The latest Girl Guiding UK survey, which I've mentioned previously in this blog, reveals how important appearance is to young girls today and how dissatisfied many are with the way they look. This 45-second video encapsulates the survey's findings:

Moving on to the topic of hair, I didn't mention in my last post that I had a recurrence of the hair-thinning nightmare around 36 or 37. I include this here not because I relish exposing myself further but in case someone who reads this is struggling with something similar and is looking for answers. I remember what a difficult time it was for me. My friends kept reassuring me there was nothing wrong with my hair but I could feel it thinning and, as if that wasn't bad enough, I had breakouts of acne. I'd finally found some peace and balance around my weight and eating and had let go of some other unhealthy behaviours so why was I looking worse than ever? What was going on? And why me? I remember the string of doctors, herbalists, naturopaths and acupuncturists I saw. Finally, after deciding I didn't want to take the variety of drugs being offered by the medical profession, I found a kinesiology practitioner who dosed me up on Omega 3 and a few other natural supplements to balance my hormones and after a long while, my skin largely cleared up and I no longer felt I was losing my hair. Through my various appointments and research, I discovered the thinning hair and acne were linked to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition that comes with all kinds of horrible symptoms like hair loss from places where you really don't want to lose it to hair gain in places you'd much prefer it didn't grow. Oh the joys of being a woman!

But back, after much meandering, to the title of this post: Every body bathing in Bath. So I spent Thursday night and Friday in the beautiful city of Bath in Somerset, home to the UK's only natural hot springs, if Wikipedia can be trusted. I'd never been to Bath before and was absolutely astonished at how beautiful it was. I was also astonished at the fact I'd never visited despite having lived in Oxford for three years when I was younger and in London for nine. But then I'm one of those people who could tell you the geography of Mexico, Brazil or Australia but who doesn't have a clue where Somerset is in relation to Oxfordshire (I do now!). Bath has actually been on my list of places to visit but it's taken me a very long time so I was really pleased I'd decided to stay the night there, despite the hotel being a little expensive. I was also delighted I'd booked a massage at the Thermae Bath Spa on Thursday evening - despite that being a little expensive too. I don't have a steady income right now and am feeling rather financially insecure but sometimes, as the L'Oreal advert says, "You're worth it".

So I sat in the spa's open-air rooftop pool until 9:30 pm on Thursday and went back there on Friday - a day of glorious sunshine - and sat in it for about an hour and a half. Yes, I came out a little shrivelled and sun-dazed but it was a lovely experience. This was pure relaxation and recreation. There was a great atmosphere - mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, groups of girls or older women, couples, and the odd sole bather (like myself) - all in a bubbling warm pool together. And it was also a great spot to ponder the topic of this blog - body image and self-acceptance.

Most of the bathers were women, women of all shapes, sizes and ages. Some were obviously very comfortable in their own skin and happy to walk around in bikinis. Others kept their bath robes on as long as possible before slipping into the water. I remarked how we are all so different in body shape and how we all put weight on in different places. If I gain weight, my upper arms and face are generally the first places to fill out. For other women, it's the waist or thighs. So why is it so hard for some of us (not all us, of course) to accept our bodies the way they are and to cherish them as unique and individual. Why have I spent so many years wanting any other body except for my own? I'm 100 percent Anglo-Saxon, after all, so as hard as I try, I'll never have the arms of Michelle Obama.

But as I've mentioned before in this blog, I know for myself that my obsessions about my body are manifestations of a deeper unease that goes right to my core. And that's where the healing has to happen and I'm pleased to say, it already is.

Last weekend also prompted some more thoughts about 'the baby gap', which I wrote about on Day 22. I was away in the beautiful Cotswolds with a group of men and women all around my age. Some of the women had had children, some when they were young but others later in life. Others of us were still waiting for it to happen or wondering if it would. I'd say all the females fell into the category of 'career women'. Our discussions prompted some thoughts: should women my age and older been made more aware of our drop in fertility after 35? Should this have been laid out to us more clearly at school or at other key moments in our lives? Or had we in fact been aware of this but had chosen to ignore it and get on with our careers? Even if we'd had all the facts, would it have made any difference? Personally, I'm aware I had a vague notion that fertility declined with age but I don't think I ever really stopped to think about it. But if I had, would I have done anything about it? I did have a moment last night of deep regret about some of the choices I'd made over the years but then I realised this morning that regret about the past won't change my present or future. It will, of course, give me something else to fret and obsess about and I certainly don't need anything new. As I pondered all this during an early morning sit in the park, I was reminded of a Bible verse I find really comforting: 'Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!'

I was also heartened this morning by the news a former colleague had just given birth to a baby girl at 45. Once again, I thought, the whole baby thing comes down to acceptance and trust - trust that it will happen or trust that I'll be OK if it doesn't. And once again, I can make the most of my freedom and gladly accept an invite from a woman my age who is also child-free (sounds better than childless) to go camping and mountain biking next weekend without having to think about who's going to look after the little ones. 

Before I sign off, I was writing on Day 24 about Australia's Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image - a great initiative but one that unfortunately has failed to have a huge impact on the fashion, advertising or media industries. Now it seems Britain has taken some small steps to regulate part of the advertising industry, publishing some new guidelines for advertisers of cosmetics. I haven't had a chance to read through all the guidelines but according to this article on Fashionista.com they include the use of misleading eyelash inserts, the excessive use of hair extensions in hair ads, the use of fake nails in nail adverts and re-touching pictures to remove fine lines and wrinkles, fly-away hair and skin blemishes, if the products advertised are claiming to help those issues. Once again, these are guidelines and as we've seen with Australia's voluntary code, industries are reluctant to change. But maybe, eventually, there'll be fewer advertisements on our TVs like Cheryl Cole's ad for L'Oreal and maybe there'll be fewer young girls (and 40-year-old women for that matter) bemoaning the fact their hair doesn't look like Cheryl Cole's on the TV ad - because the truth is even Cheryl Cole's hair doesn't look like Cheryl Cole's hair on the TV ad.

And finally, how's this for comic timing: as I was finishing up this section on Cheryl Cole's fake TV hair, I noticed I'm now being followed on Twitter by a company that sells organic hair extensions. Should I give it a go? Never say never but for now, I think I'll stick with my own hair, just as it is.

Days 27 & 28: Adios to arm envy

So this picture looks so unlike me it's funny. The only thing that's close to reality is the colour of the scooter (it's a perfect match, in fact). But what isn't that funny is that for a good chunk of my life I really wanted to look something like this. I particularly coveted two of her attributes: her super slim arms and her long, blonde hair - the kind of hair that would bounce along behind you. I got over wanting to be blonde a good while ago but I've never stopped wanting the long, thick, glossy, TV-ad kind of hair. And as for the arms, arm envy has been a big part of my life. I've often been jealous of my Latina friends' tiny, toned arms or wished I had Michelle Obama's long, elegant arms. (The First Lady's toned arms originally caused quite a stir on the other side of the Atlantic, apparently.)

So, I realised last weekend that my Lenten self-acceptance efforts hadn't yet reached my upper arms and it was about time I included them. This realisation came when I was wandering around London's Spitalfields Market with a friend, browsing the clothes stalls. I spotted a purple dress that I thought would have suited for work. But I didn't try it on - it had short sleeves. I could wear something under it, I said to my friend, a long-sleeved stretch top perhaps, but she frowned at the suggestion - why would I want to do that? Well, because I've always disliked my upper arms and have avoided exposing them wherever possible. Now, I know this is partly irrational and has a lot to do with perfectionism. These thoughts belong to that familiar pattern of always finding something to obsess about to distract me from other, more painful stuff. These are the types of thoughts that have kept me trapped for many years - thinking I won't wear that dress until I'm a particular size or shape, or I'll wait until I look like Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, Kate Moss or whoever, before I start living life to the full. (As we know, these thoughts seem to be pretty common amongst women - 30 percent of women today would trade at least a year of their life to achieve their ideal body weight and shape, according to this research.)

I also think, however, my arm hang-up is partly rational - my arms are ever so slightly out of proportion with the rest of my body. A dress, blouse or jacket will fit me everywhere else but sometimes it'll feel tight or get stuck on my arms. Just like some women struggle to do the zip up over their calves on knee-high boots, I sometimes struggle to get things over my arms. So what's the answer? Well, I think it's twofold. Firstly, I can do something about the way I feel about my arms. Michelle Obama may have good genes but those arms also look like they've lifted a few light weights or swam a few lengths, and I can do that too. Whenever I do some arm exercises, I notice slight changes and feel better about myself so I think part of the answer is physical - it's about taking small steps to change the things I can. The other side of the battle is mental - learning to accept them just as they are, as a conscious act, on a daily basis. So that's my challenge for the rest of this Lenten period and the rest of my life, of course. Because self-acceptance isn't just for Lent, it's for life!

On the subject of body hang-ups, I might as well talk about the other one: my hair. Negative thoughts about the state of my hair have been some of the hardest ones to fight, or surrender, this Lent. There is a history to this, and it's kind of painful, emotionally, but there's bound to be some irrational thoughts and feelings in there also. When I was younger, I was never happy with my hair, just as I was never happy with my appearance in general. I think this is pretty common - if our hair is curly we want it to be straight, if it's blonde we want it to be dark. But those thoughts and feelings are particularly stark for young girls who have low self-esteem or are self conscious about their appearance. I'd say that was me when I was younger, although I may have hid it well by being outwardly confident and capable. I remember being very angry at the fact that every time we played Charlie's Angels I had to play the one with dark hair and my blonde friend got to play the blonde. I wanted to play the blonde!

But of course we never truly appreciate anything until it's gone and so my dissatisfaction with the colour of my hair paled into significance when my hair started to thin and its texture changed when I was around 15. Now I really had something to worry and obsess about. I could blame what happened on a bad home perm but I think the real reason was that I started to undereat around that age so I think it was hormonal. My body wanted to grow up but it didn't have enough food or fat to do so. I'm no doctor, this is just how I see it. Maybe it was always going to happen, who knows. Soon, though, my undereating turned to overeating, but that didn't make the hair grow back. It just meant I was now bigger than I was, terribly self-conscious about my body and with thinner, frizzy hair.

I'll never forget the excruciating moment when, as a teenager, I was heading in to a changing room at a clothes store in Liverpool and two girls went in to the cubicle next to me. They'd seen me and I heard them say, "Isn't that Katherine? What's happened to her? She used to be so slim. And her hair, it's gone all frizzy." That was my recollection, anyway. And I remember the other school friend who said, "You've got a really pretty face. Shame about the hair." Of course, we all know kids are cruel and maybe some children on the receiving end of such comments can brush them off. I certainly didn't. I'm 40 and I still remember them! I can also remember the restaurant owner on the Greek Island who said, squeezing my upper arms, "pretty face, shame about the body". That Greek trip came after a summer I'd spent working at Haagen Dazs ice cream parlour in Oxford. I ate ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner and ended up feeling pretty unhappy about my weight and my looks.

So, overweight and with frizzy hair - that definitely wasn't how God had intended me to look. I felt like I'd been given something pretty reasonable to work with but that I'd ruined it. So my mentality was that because I didn't look perfect, or anything like it, why bother? Why look after my hair, why stop binge-drinking or binge-eating? Why wear nice clothes or get a good hair cut? It took me many years to recover some vanity or healthy self-care and I thank Mexico and some of my Mexican girlfriends for reintroducing vanity into my life. But then I went to the opposite extreme - diet pills, over-exercising, body obsession etc. It was only in my early 30s that I realised that my eating behaviours and lots of my other behaviours weren't healthy and I set out to get help, to find out why I was behaving as I was and to learn some real self-care - including eating healthily, exercising moderately and getting regular hair cuts. In the case of my hair, it's also meant seeking advice to make sure I'm doing what I can to keep my hormones balanced and my hair healthy. Omega 3 has worked wonders. 

My growing self-esteem, however, doesn't mean that every time I take off my scooter helmet I don't wish I had long luscious locks that would effortlessly rearrange themselves as I shake my head (like on TV!). But I'm realising it's not going to happen so I'd be better off cherishing what I have. So, today, I'm doing my best to say thank you God for my hair and please take away the self-obsession, the body obsession, and replace it with greater self-acceptance, peace, contentment and a desire to live and enjoy life, just as I am.

Who would I rather be? I'll stick with me.

P.S. This blog is for Days 27 & 28, today and tomorrow, as from now on, this weekend is about self-care, relaxation, sunshine, friends, fun and laughter. Enjoy.

Days 25 & 26: Looking good naked

So, I feel I've neglected my blog this week but there wasn't much I could do about it. Well, actually, there was but it would have been totally out of character - I could have planned my time and my workload better. That's something I'm definitely working on but I'm not there yet. I'm hoping my new planning tools will help me - a magnetic white board on which I'm going to stick a big monthly diary that'll be coloured in and scribbled on with time blocked out for work, fun, exercise, communing with nature etc. Let's just hope I manage to drill the board to the wall soon - drilling isn't my forte but I'm determined to give it a go this time, and without supervision!

For today, however, I'll just have to accept that I had to neglect my blog a little this week to get my other work done. However, through that work, I have learned or been reminded of something - namely, that my anxiety around my ability to do a particular work project gets in my way and takes up my time much more than the actual doing of the work. Maybe when I take on my next project I can start from a position of self-belief and greater confidence in my abilities as well as an understanding that striving for perfection is a fool's game.

Today's post will be pretty short and sweet also - I hope to post something longer and a little more personal tomorrow. I'm in Somerset today (part of the work project) and it definitely is summer here. The sun is out, the fields are a glorious green and I've seen several people wandering around in shorts. Sometimes, getting out of London and into the great English countryside is such a tonic. Notice I'm not revealing my precise whereabouts. Ever since my Mum told me about the thriller she'd read in which the victim was stalked by her attacker via her Facebook and Twitter feeds I've been a little nervous about revealing my exact location!

Before I head off for my massage - yes, I've actually booked a massage (a rare event) - I just want to alert any Londoners who might be interested in taking their clothes of in the interests of bodily self acceptance about an event taking place tomorrow. Spirited Bodies was founded by three life models - Morimda, Lucy and Esther - who, as a by-product of their work, feel comfortable with their nudity and who now use art to empower other women to feel the same. As it says on their website, "it is wonderful to be comfortable being oneself", but so few women feel that way, partly because of a culture that tells us we should aspire to a certain image of beauty or body size. Tomorrow evening, that's Friday April 8, Spirited Bodies is inviting women (and one man it seems!) to take part in a life modelling event, creating Renaissance masterpieces like Rubens' 'The Three Graces' or Titian's 'The Seven Ages of Woman'. The event is entitled 'The Ages of Woman' and women of all, shapes, ages, sizes and colours are invited to attend. I can't say I've ever tried life modelling and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it for myself, so I'll defer to Spirited Bodies greater knowledge of its potential benefits, as stated on their website: "Life modelling can be beneficial to those overcoming body confidence issues, to women accepting and loving their bodies following pregnancy, illness, trauma, abuse or being over-sexualised. It is a powerful way to get in touch with yourself through meditation and being an inspiration for art." While I can see the logic in that I think I'll stick to my massage for today, but hoping all those who attend the Spirited Bodies event leave feeling empowered and more comfortable in their own skin.

Day 24: Upping the ante Down Under

It's been yet another long day of work (I'm definitely out of practice!) but I justed wanted to highlight an interesting campaign I noticed - thanks to The Beautiful You website.

It seems like the Australians are getting serious when it comes to the fight against negative body image, particularly amongst young people. I've only just become aware of this - these topics weren't really on my journalistic radar last year - but in June 2010 the Australian government released a Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image for the fashion, media and advertising industries.

The code suggests that the industries use a diversity of body shapes, sizes and ethnicities, that advertising campaigns support positive and healthy body image behaviour and that they stop propagating unrealistic images of beauty through digital manipulation of photography. The code also advises the industries to use models of healthy weights, to only use models over 16 to model adult clothing and it advises retailers to stock a wide variety of sizes. That's all pretty cool. I'm not sure if any other country has anything similar although I've written earlier in this blog about the Campaign for Body Confidence that the UK's Equality Minister Lynne Featherstone and member of parliament Jo Swinson run, with similar aims. 

It seems, however, that the media, fashion and advertising industries Down Under aren't paying much attention to the new guidelines, showing that change will take a while to come in an arena where so many people make so much money out of marketing beauty products, diet plans, botox and so on. To try to speed things up, campaigners have launched this online petition to Australian Minister of Youth Peter Garrett, calling on him to pressure the industries to do more to promote positive body image. The petition is organised by the Equality Rights Alliance, a network that advocates for women's equality and diversity, and it closes tomorrow. So if there are any Australians reading this and you'd like to add your name, follow the links and sign up.

Day 23: Baby or no baby

Blogging at the end of a busy work day is probably a really bad idea. Rambling and incoherent thoughts, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and the disclosure of information I really should have kept to myself are just some of the potential pitfalls. So I'll keep this one very brief.

Firstly, a small addition to Saturday's blog. I wrote in my baby gap post that women who've never given birth will never know what it feels like to do so - even if they do end up loving their adopted children as if they were their own. I omitted to say that, likewise, women who have had children will never know what it feels like for those who don't and really want to. It's impossible to put ourselves in each other's shoes, as much as we might try to in an effort to understand, empathise or sympathise. I was also reminded that I'd noted recently that there was no point in me hankering after a baby while suffering from lower back pain and doing very little about it. Watching a heavily pregnant mother reach down to pick up her small son yesterday evening - without any signs of painful twinges - made me think I'd better get back to Pilates if I ever want to do the same. But then I'd better get back to Pilates anyway, baby or no baby, if I want a pain-free future (I've corrected this bit - I posted it as 'baby or no body'. What did I say about mistakes?!).

For the rest of this post, I'll let others speak for me. So here's an article by writer, teacher and speaker Courtney E. Martin entitled 'Botox, bingeing, bullying and breast ironing: we must stop the war on women's bodies' in which she calls for a new 'body image activism' to challenge a wave of body hate that's spreading around the globe. Courtney coordinated the Endangered Species women's summit in New York last month and is part of an international campaign of the same name. I've written a fair bit about the Endangered Species events on this blog and have just published this short feature about them in Six Magazine, a new ethical fashion magazine.

And that's it, short and sweet, and hopefully not too rambling.

Day 22: The baby gap

I wasn't going to post today, it being the weekend and me trying to practise balance and all that. But then I love writing on my blog and really felt moved - by some feelings that came up last night - to write today, so here I am. I'll make sure I do lots of balanced things for the rest of my day and weekend, promise. Sometimes, too, the writing just flows. At other times, my thoughts are more jumbled - I think yesterday's post is an example of that or maybe that's my perfectionism talking. I hope I made some sense with my musings on truth.

So, the baby gap. No, I'm not referring to the junior section of the U.S. clothing store and nor am I talking about the period of time some parents deliberately leave between having their various offspring. I'm using the word 'gap' here more in the context of that familiar warning on the London Tube - 'Mind the Gap', meaning watch out for the void, the chasm, the space where there's something missing. So what's this all about? Well, you guessed it, I'm talking about the absence of babies or children.

I was out last night with a delightful group of ladies having a lovely time over chocolate brownies and pink fizz to celebrate a birthday. Now, I've learned over the past few years the futility of comparing my life to anyone else's ('compare and despair', 'the grass is always greener' and all that). But it's actually not that easy to turn off the feelings. I'd say the majority of the women, or perhaps all, were younger than me, some by 10 or 15 years, and several were already well into motherhood, with one or two babies. Those who didn't have babies were in their 20s. Now this isn't to say that I didn't have a lovely time and wouldn't do it again in a flash but inevitably - as a 40-year-old single woman without children - some feelings come up when I'm in that situation or they surface when I get home. I think I do a much better job today than I ever did in the past of accepting I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be - and this blog is indeed about self-acceptance, in all areas - but that doesn't stop me questioning certain things or pondering my future.

I guess the big question is will I ever have a child of my own, naturally, and if I don't what will that feel like, emotionally and physically? Will it bother me? Will I just move on or will I have a lot of feelings to 'work through'? Will I try IVF? Will I adopt a beautiful child and love it as though I'd given birth? I guess the wonderful and scary thing about the future is we can't predict it. Deep down, I have to say, I do trust I'll have a child naturally but I have no real reason to believe that, other than an instinct and a sense that my body, inside, is pretty young and healthy. I guess I've also learned that there isn't much point pondering this question for too long or worrying about it but then I don't think I'd be human if I didn't ponder it a little, from time to time.

At this stage in my life, I can say I know women and men in a whole range of situations in relation to babies and children - mothers of many, women who have deliberately and contentedly opted out of having any, women who are struggling to conceive naturally, others who are struggling to conceive through IVF, others who have been successful with IVF. I know single women my age and older, some who long to have children and some who have accepted they won't. Some who accepted that fact with ease, others who had to work through feelings of regret, bitterness, anger even. I know single mothers and fathers, parents of children with disabilities, parents who've gone through the unimaginable heartache of losing a child. I know 'miracle' mothers, those women who've been told they could never have babies but then suddenly got pregnant or others who had the same experience but then sadly miscarried. I know women who've terminated pregnancies earlier in their lives only to wonder if that was their only chance. It's an emotional rollercoaster just writing about it - imagine what it's like to live it! I also know women who've adopted or taken a child into their care. A friend who's bringing up her natural daughter on her own recently commented to me that I would never know what it felt like to have a child naturally if I never did. I guess that's very true. But then another friend who's become the legal guardian of a beautiful girl told me she didn't think she could love the child any more even if she had given birth to her. It's as though she was her own.

I can't say I particularly know where I'm going with all this but it was on my heart so I wanted to write it down. I honestly think I would feel a sense of loss if I didn't conceive and give birth. It just seems such a natural thing to do. But nor am I under any illusions (or maybe I am because I really don't think you know what it's like until you're actually in it) about how difficult it is, at times, to be a mother or father of a young baby or bring up children, particularly as a single parent. I definitely wouldn't be sitting here writing this blog if I had young children, that's for sure - but then am I writing this blog to fill the baby gap? Or maybe I would be writing this blog as the little one slept.

I have so many other questions related to this fascinating topic. For example, do men feel the same? If men without children are hanging out with a group of fathers, do they feel a sense of loss? Do they ask themselves, will it happen to me? I guess it depends on the man. Just as it'll depend on the woman. And here's another topic I often discuss with friends my age: is our constant searching for a 'purpose' - a fulfilling and satisfying career or a mission in life - a product of the fact that we're in our late 30s or 40s and don't have children to worry about, something that would have happened far less often if we'd been born 20 years ago. But then I think women and men who do have children often ask themselves the same questions, around their careers or their purpose or where their life is heading. And of course, there's the moment when the children leave home after all those years. I've probably also been prompted to write about these topics after catching some of Jeremy Vine's Parenting Week on BBC Radio 2 (there are some advantages to working from home).

But going back to my own story, I also try to hold on to the fact that everything happens for a reason and that God knows what he's doing. Unlike some of the lovely ladies I was with last night, I don't think I'd have made a very good mother in my 20s or early 30s. The binge-drinking, overeating, undereating, overexercise, overwork, compulsive partying, risk taking etc would have left very little time for good parenting. Or would it? Maybe having a child would have changed everything, but then I'll never know.

Let me just say here that I hope I don't sound flippant in addressing these issues. I wouldn't describe myself as someone who wanted a baby just for the experience, or for the sake of it, or because I believe it's my right as a woman (although I admit there's probably a bit of that going on, particularly the last point). I think I do understand the responsibilities that come with having a child and the potential for harm if my reasons for doing so are selfish. But as I said above, it feels like something I'm drawn towards and that I'd miss if it didn't happen.

So the conclusion I've come to after all these musings is that, although I'm bound to think about it now and then, there's not much point in 'minding the baby gap'. I can write this blog because I don't have little ones running around me. I can jump on my bike and cycle over to Camden to meet friends for coffee. I can find a park to sit in and soak up the spring sunshine and I can plan a trip to a friend's wedding in New York in May. I guess, like anything else in life, it comes down to appreciating where you are and what you do have rather than hankering after something else, which ties in nicely with the topic of accepting our bodies as they are instead of waiting until we look like Cindy Crawford (or whoever our role model is) to start living our lives to the full. God willing, I won't always have just myself to look after, but in the meantime I can do my best to enjoy the freedom that comes with being 40 and not having children.

Day 21: The truth will set you free

It's been a long day today but I wanted to write a very short post about truth. It's a topic that's been on my mind this week after a few recent experiences with dishonesty - my own and that of others. Now, when I say dishonesty, I don't mean outright lying or stealing or anything of that sort. It's the subtle dishonesty, the omission of true facts, the disguising of our true feelings - sometimes for good reason, sometimes out of fear - that I'm talking about here. Unfortunately, that kind of dishonesty is often harmful, both to ourselves and others. We or the other party may feel better in the short-term, but in the longer-term the truth generally comes out - with similar or even worse consequences to the ones it would have had if it had been disclosed in the first place. 

On the topic of truth, two very familiar quotes came to me last night: 'The truth will set you free' and 'To thine own self be true'. They're so simple and yet so true!

And then I felt prompted to look up a few more quotes on truth and found the following: 'We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable'. That was said by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian and Soviet novelist and historian, according to Wikipedia (Not a name I was overly familiar with!). And then there's this one, attributed to James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States: 'The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable'. That kind of chimes with what I wrote above about the avoidance of truth sometimes making us feel better in the short-term. This one, from the English writer Aldous Huxley, is along similar lines: 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.' If it's a topic that interests you, check out the Quote Garden's quotations about truth. Incidentally, I also had to look up the authors of those first two quotes I mentioned. So, it was Jesus who said 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free' and the second comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet. 'To thine own self be true' was Polonius' last piece of advice to his son Laertes, who was in a hurry to catch a boat to Paris (apparently - trusting the Internet here as my memory of Hamlet isn't that great).

So what's my point with these musings on truth? Well, I guess my point is to myself: that honesty is the path to true freedom, even if it's a scary prospect at the time.

To return to the topic of body image before I wrap up, I just came across a great blog on a website called Beautiful You, which is the work of Melbourne-based Julie Parker, a self-esteem, body image and eating disorder counsellor and life coach. In 'Crinkly Cleavage and Ugly Underarms', Julie takes a swipe at the beauty industry and its latest attempt to sell women products to disguise the bits of us we're not supposed to like. While I've had my fair share of body image issues in my life, I've never been overly perturbed by my underarms - and I'm not about to start worrying now!