It takes a lot for me to pull out a dictionary, but semiotics, I like a girl willing to string together a rarely used combination of syllables. I like Anna Sanford Lowe.
In 2005 Elder Holland gave a talk, "To Young Women", in the October session. A few lines of this incredibly insightful talk have been permanently burned in my memory and heart:
"I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not!"
My whole life I have tried to "fit in". To be someone I am not. I wanted to look like everyone else. Average. Normal. I have had to stop using those words, because I reached a point in my life where I realized that they don't have any meaning. Now I am not delving into semiotics here, claiming words have no definitions, but normal, average have no meaning because they mean something different for every person. There was a time in my life when I measured my thighs multiple times a day. What was the ideal measurement? Someone once asked me that. And suddenly, I realized. There is no normal. There is no perfect thigh size. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I am the beholder in the mirror everyday. I had to start believing that I am beautiful. I had to stop trying to "fit in." Because that state of being doesn't exist. We are who we are. And we need to like the way we are.
I thought about some lines from one of my favorite ever, and ever children's books:
I Like the Way You Are. Two turtles. Two friends. Very different. And at the end of each story, one turtle says to the other: "I am who I am. And I am not who I am not." And the friend turtle answers back: "I like the way you are." I cry almost every time I read that book with my kids. I want to put those lines on each of their walls and say it to them every night before they go to bed. And when they wake up. And when they come home from school crying because someone said they were too this or not enough that. I want them to know and be proud of who they are. And proud of who they are not. And to know that I, and their Heavenly Father, LOVE the way they are.
Here is the big surprise: I am skinny. I covet my daughters' thick, healthy thighs (they're 3 and 2). I have tried to make myself gain weight through eating, prayer, weight gaining shakes. But you know what: my body seems to know something that took my head and heart a lot longer to learn: I am who I am. I am not who I am not. And I like the way I am. My body has a blueprint and it knows who it is. And I am learning to love that person. It is different from my sisters, my mom, my grandma, my friends, my sisters-in-law, my mother-in-law. But it is me.
That is why Elder Holland's talk resonated with me. Because everyone wants to be something they are not. So many people want to be thinner. And I have spent my life trying to be bigger. I am no one's ideal. Just like they are not mine. Because there is no ideal. There is no perfect measurement. There is no normal.
And thank goodness! We are all so beautiful and so different. The world would be so boring if we all looked the same. When I look at other people, I don't see weight, I see beauty. I see personality. I see love. I see faith and charity. When I look at myself, I am trying to see those same things. Because if everyone is trying to be someone else, we are not spending enough time being ourselves. And God needs us to be ourselves.
Elder Holland quotes a Young Women leader, "'When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]'"
Everyday I tell myself that I love being me. I love my imperfections and my strengths. It is all me. My weight does not define me, if I do not let it. There is no normal. We are all beautiful, powerful daughters of God. And I like the way we are. I like the way I am.
