Tiger Stripes

I am very much at that point in my journey where I am questioning just how much more weight I should loose. And not because I have reached my goal.

I am at that place, which many people loosing a significant amount get to, where I don't know if what is left will ever go away. Is it fat? Is it loose skin? Will the loose skin just get more obvious if I loose more weight, or will it cinch in?

I'm pretty lucky, comparatively. The skin on my lower stomach is a bit saggy, but not massively so.

My most noticeable “weight loss scars” are stretch marks.

Photo by Suganth on Unsplash

And I have them everywhere. There are ravines traveling up the length of my stomach, stripes of silver tightly collected all over my breasts, marks on my thighs. And I was so mad during the period when the weight was piling on and those angry red scars were forming. I was so angry! All my life, I had managed to minimize the damage done to my body, and my body damaged itself! Luckily, years later, they are no longer red, but silver. Still rather noticeable, but, with their fading, they are now a badge of success.

Anyone to whom I've expressed concern about those marks (if they were worthwhile humans, at least), told me I was way more worried about them than anyone else ever would be. If you want or need to have surgery, do it, whether it's purely cosmetic or health related, but, in that same vain, if you are, or can be, comfortable in your body, and the physical evidence of your life's journey that it bears, that is good, too.

Not gonna go too deeply into it, but I very much believe in body dysmorphia. I look at pictures from High School and College, during periods when I desperately wanted to be smaller, but was smaller than I am now. Body dysmorphia is definitely a thing.

I see myself in the mirror these days, and I'm happy. I see pictures of myself, and I like those, too. My doctor, at the very least, is happier with the state of my weight. Last time he saw me, he walked into the room and expressed shock, said he barely recognized me. Most importantly, though, I'm comfortable in my own skin. 85 to 90 percent of the time, anyway.

I am selective about what I wear, not because I think that there are things I should not wear. The selectivity derives from the same message expressed in that silly meme, "This one sparks joy."

Hell, I wore a crop top for the first time last year, and it would be a winning bet if you put money on me wearing more of them this year. Oh, someone doesn't like it? Someone is offended by my less than perfect body? Who cares. Not me, for sure. Don't exclude anything you are comfortable wearing from your wardrobe, in my opinion. And if you don't want to wear it, don't. If you don't love it, don't buy it.

But if it makes any piece of you smile, listen to that whispering piece, and grow into it. And definitely do not let any other living soul tell you what to wear or how to live your life.

Live your individual journey just that way. Individually.

P.S. Search the web for rainbow stretch mark tattoos. I hope those pics make you smile.