Rant to Young Girls

 Last week when I was at the gym, I walked into the change room to find a group of friends I exercise with visibly upset.  Apparently two young girls, approximately 13-15 years of age had stood in the showers pointing and laughing at them while the women were getting dressed. The incident was over before I finished class, so I had no opportunity to talk to these girls, and it has been bothering me ever since.

We were upset because of the overall unkindness in the remarks, and because the women had been so surprised by the verbal attack that no one had been able to defend themselves.  We all know how we look, that we're no longer in the best physical shape of our lives.  Some of us wear medication patches, some have scars from surgery, some even use walkers to get around.

I wish I'd been there in time to talk to the girls.  To explain that although we probably look grotesque and fat and old to them, we have earned the bodies we live in.  We have birthed babies and raised children.  We have worked outside our homes and been responsible for maintaining the housework as well.  By our age, we have cared for our ill and confused parents and then buried them.   Yes, there are women among us who are heavier and women who are thinner, but all of us are at least moving our bodies and doing the best we can.  Over the course of a year, its not unusual for at least one of us to disappear for a few weeks and come back to explain that they'd had a husband or parent in the hospital.  We all understand.

I remember looking at my mother in the mirror when I was a teenager and thinking (to myself, because I didn't have a death wish) that my breasts would certainly never be so big that they would sag.  That my upper arms wouldn't wobble when I brushed my teeth and I wouldn't get crowsfeet around my eyes.   I planned to always look the same, with high, perky breasts, a tight stomach and bright clear eyes.  Aging was what happened to parents, certainly not to me.