Nothing beats a great pair of legs.

It is hot again. I guess i shouldn't be surprised since it's August but it really is pretty bad. So bad in fact that today, my friends, i wore shorts which is something i never do (except looooong board shorts while surfing to prevent the chafe). I even wore them when i went into manhattan. Actually i wore them because i was going into manhattan. The combination of reflected heat and all the AC off-gassing in midtown means there is no humanly way possible to survive in anything that is ankle length. And all my skirts are dirty. And i don't fit into any of my cropped pants since pregnancy (don't even think the term 'flat-front' in my presence these days). But i do have this pair of shortish shorts that i bought a few years ago in some beginning-to-diet-i've-lost-10lbs euphoria where i was convinced because i was actually losing weight for once in my life i had suddenly morphed into some Angelina-Uma creature that looks good in this evil garment. I have worn them once before but that was only on a brief trip to my full-length mirror so it hardly counts. But, now that my standards have slipped as far as what I wear on a daily basis the shorts seemed perfectly fine as they had no sweet potato stains on them nor did they smell funny. So i donned them and went on my merry way.

I have a tortured relationship with my legs. When people describe them they tend towards terms like "athletic", "sturdy" or the simple "big ol' ". The only time that i felt like my body met society's ideal was when i lived in eastern europe and i was surrounded by the lovely ladies of socialist realism. One of the reasons that I never wear knee-high boots is that I have yet to find the pair that could ensconce my ample calves. And the cellulite. Oh the cellulite. I don't really remember life without it (as my mother gravely warned me at 17, "Alana... you are wasting the firm years") but it spread like kudzu during pregnancy and as far as I can tell has no plans on receding. (I didn't know that you could have cellulite on your ankles. Pretty cool). I have always hated the way they looked and have fervently wished for shapely thin legs a bajillion times. On the other hand my legs work. They convey me from point a to point b without much complaint. Many times I do not give them a second thought and really could give a f*ck. Also, they look fine in jeans which i pretty much wear exclusively these days. But after about 30-odd paces out of my apartment today in the foreign shorts-garment i was really reconsidering my decision to wear them. I started to feel self-conscious and ridiculous and had to keep talking myself down. I also started to feel depressed that even after a boatload of therapy I am still in so many ways at square one when it comes to my body image. Anyway, as I was having this death-spiral interior monologue i crossed a busy street near my house and a brother yelled from the window of his idling SUV "You have beautiful legs sweetheart!" Ordinarily comments on my appearance from strangers really bug me but this time I felt like the guy was a conduit for the Great Spirit and he was there to assure me that my healthy legs were making the universe go "mmmmmmm." My bad mood evaporated and I smiled right at him. I felt great for the rest of the day because it helped me realize yet again that so much depends on one's attitude. So what if I've got pudding thighs? So what if I have junk in my trunk? If I can walk I can work it.

Comments

I feel this way, too. And once when I was feeling incredibly insecure about my ugly shorts a homeless woman chased me down the street screaming, "You're ugly, lady! You're ugly!" Hopefully this was not the Great Spirit at work.

Posted by: alice | August 04, 2005 at 04:05 PM