The Book of Me: I Am What I Am

I have gone through life believing I was overweight and it wasn't until I was truly overweight that I realized I was not fat as a child!  I have pictures of me as a teen where I am trying to hide my body or stand to de-emphasize my hips.  I graduated from high school weighing about 125 pounds on a 5 foot, six inch frame.

I am a pear shape and it has only been in recent years that I have come to accept my body as it is. Of course, I would love to lose weight.  I have lost and gained weight throughout the last 30 years. I know how to lose weight, I know the benefits of losing weight, but my mind just isn't there yet.  I don't blame my weight gain on anything, I just eat too much and don't exercise enough!

I am what I am!  I have flaws, but that is what makes me unique.  I look in the mirror and this is what I see:

• short, white hair that many people ask if I dye it this color. No, I don't.
• ears that are pierced once in each ear.
• glasses, that I would be blind without (I can't even read the big E on the eye chart without them) covering my big brown eyes. 
• smooth white skin that reddens when I get hot.
• straight white teeth that the dentist says are in excellent shape, only a few cavities. 
• a scar going across my neck.  If I didn't have that scar I wouldn't be here today.  I had thyroid cancer that spread to my lymph nodes thirty three years ago.  I am a survivor.
• a body that gravity is taking its' toll on.
• a back with a few sun spots and two newly created scars from having two benign lumps removed.  A small one on my right shoulder and a medium size one in the middle of my back.

• Hands that held my two beautiful, newborn babies have now turned to arthritic hands, with nodules on a few fingers and bone spurs on my thumbs.  I wear braces when the pain gets bad.  My fingers no longer wear the beautiful rings that I have.  I can get them on, but not off, so I stopped wearing them.  I have a beautiful, round, solitaire diamond that belonged to my husband's grandmother, a simple wedding band, an anniversary band with a row of diamonds, and a lovely sapphire cocktail ring that my husband gave me to commemorate our son's birth.  
• an innie belly button scarred by surgery I had as a toddler to correct an umbilical hernia.
• a knee scarred when I was 12, when I fell off my bike while riding on loose gravel.  I thought I would be picking gravel out of my knee forever.  The gravel is gone, but a quarter size scar is left.
• short legs attached to a long torso and high arched feet that have treated me pretty well over the years.

This is me!  As they say in La Cage aux Folles- I am what I am, my own special creation!