Birthday Suit By Alicia Anka October 21, 2014 We all come into this world in our birthday suits, with skin soft as velvet, unmarred by the world, and fragile limbs eager to grow. And as we pass through life, our suits begin to change; they grow threadbare in some places and deflate in others. Over lifetimes, we overstuff them, aggress them or even under nourish them, often willing them to be something other than what they are. Many of us cannot accept ourselves as is so we cut, tuck and alter our suits in order to feel better in them. With every experience we live, every pain we suffer, our birthday suits reflect how our bodies endure life, often telling the stories for which we no longer find the words. When I first had my son five years ago, I sat looking at him for hours on end, mesmerized by his miniscule, wrinkly hands and feet, his flat red bottom and odd shaped head. It was as if his suit was not quite finished yet. As he began to grow, I gazed in awe at his flawless skin and perfectly proportioned, buoyant limbs, knowing he was still a blank canvas on which he would paint his life. Also knowing, his forceful and often raging spirit would one day find peace when his birthday suit finally grew to a size that matched his large personality. I cried so hard the day he had his first big accident, leaving him with a scar and a lump on his forehead, as I knew that it was the first of many injuries that would alter his birthday suit forever. I remember feeling ashamed of my birthday suit when I was a little girl, the way my thighs and tummy bulged, the freckles that appeared on my nose in summer, the scars on my legs from playing outdoors with my sisters that I would hide beneath my knee socks before going to school in the morning. I thought that if I could change my suit somehow, I could change how I felt inside as well. So I tried. I starved it, over-exercised and over-tanned it as a teenager; adorned it with piercings and tattoos in my twenties and paraded it around to get attention, but still never truly loved it. After all, it was only a suit and I had not yet found a way to understand the girl inside of it. I am 44 today. My own birthday suit is well worn and changing daily. I spend half my time zapping, lasering and lamenting the marks of time and the other half thanking my body for getting me this far, for helping me survive so many things in life. In private moments, I study it like an old map, revisiting the people and experiences of my life that have made up its topography. My hands so much like my mothers - long, slender fingers and thumbs that are beginning to curl inward with age like hers; a nose with one nostril smaller than the other after two skin cancer surgeries; loose skin around my stomach – a gift from my son; stocky thighs I have spent a lifetime disliking as they are truly my father’s – his legacy to all 5 daughters; a boomerang shaped scar on my inner right elbow from scissors in the second grade; jagged knuckles from trying to ride my bike with no hands when I was nine; a jellyfish scar laced along my left thigh from a swim in the sea last summer. A lifetime of lessons learned, of pain endured, of words of past lovers etched upon my skin, of bravery, of things I overcame, of places I inhabited. Our birthday suits reveal it all. My son often asks about the various marks on my skin, if one day I will look as wrinkly as his grandparents, if he will too. I tell him these suits don’t last forever, but we must do our best to care for them all the same. I tell him one day he, like all of us, will unzip his suit and be able to fly freely. I hope that it’s the truth. I look back at my younger years and wish I had cared for my birthday suit more, cherished it and admired it at every stage instead of wishing that it were different, more perfect. But one cannot go back, so today is my birthday and I will honor my birthday suit and all that it has put up with and will try to bear its changes more gracefully as time marches on. Take the time to honor yourself and your birthday suit this week. Say thank you for all it has endured; say sorry for not accepting it just the way it is; care for it and honor it instead of condemning it; celebrate the memories it enables you to relive any time that you wish; and remember that it is merely a suit and the real you is what is living, breathing and being inside of it.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 10:28:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015