Beauty and that elusive, oh-so perfect body

I find myself sometimes watching other women, usually young and generally childless. I watch the way their clothes hang on their bodies and notice that when they move nothing jiggles. No arm fat hangs down and there is nothing like cellulite or softness anywhere near their stomachs or hips. I lust. I envy. I chide myself. My mind rapidly runs from the top of my head down to my toes, carefully and brutally taking inventory of my faults. My hair is brittle and frizzy but remains dreadfully straight, almost stringy, my teeth are yellow and crooked, my nose is pointy, one eye is higher than the other, my arms are fat, my breasts hang low and are too large, my stomach bulges and rolls and squishes, my hips are too wide, my bottom too flat, my thighs are lumpy yet soft, my calves are hairy, my feet are dry. No one else has these problems. When I look, they look good. I can only see perfection through my green lens.

I do not visit the gym. This is a source of guilt. I do not work out. I sometimes eat ice cream or chocolate cake or even oreo cookies. But I walk a lot, almost everyday, I tell myself. And I cook most of our food from scratch and it is mostly organic and is all natural. And I am very active. I whisper to myself: I dance, I chase my baby, I garden. Oh yeah, and I'm still nursing a lot. Doesn't that count? But it is never enough. The thin girls win. I can never again have that pre-pubescent child's body. My body is that of a woman and I cannot revel in that. I cannot enjoy the fact that my body grew a child. My body delivered this child with no assistance. My body nourishes this child. I cannot celebrate my body's strength. I cannot celebrate my womanliness. I cannot find it sexy. There is something very wrong with my mind. My body is strong and healthy but my mind tells me this is not true. My mind sees faults and ugliness. My mind is wrong but I cannot make it know that.

But isn't this what every women thinks? Who was it who told us that we cannot be women? Why do we give them this power? Why do we continue to give them this power even when we recognize this problem? Why do we beat ourselves up trying to turn back our bodies to our childhood days... and why do we accept that a child's body is sexier than a woman's body? There is something very sick about that.