In this summer period, I am in this fitting room, it is the torture of the swimsuit. I am alone, I look at you, you, this body which has the privilege of years, marked by my two happy pregnancies, the nice abuses of good food and alcohol, of evenings too late, of devastating, but intoxicating rays of the sun!
“Madam, are the sizes correct?” She is there in front of me, with her youthful body, her tanned skin still intact from the effects of time passing. My body, I compare you, without wanting to, without desiring it, like a fracture between the fifties and the twenties, between the standards of beauty and reality. I love you however, I am grateful to you for what you are and especially for what you allow me to do: love, savor, enjoy, take in my arms those I love, teach, play sports, paddle, cook, in short, live!
Yet, the way I look at you lacks empathy and kindness. Yes, this fashionable word is overused in many ways. I ask you to forgive me for all the judgments I make of you, the ungraceful and harsh words I sometimes address to you. Yet you are so faithful to me and you are good to me.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you, you’re kind.” In front of your reflection, I then think back to this young student so cute in her authenticity who, during a sincere discussion with three of her classmates, thanked me for offering her a model of a woman with beautiful and confident curves through the choice of my clothes, through my words on the good things in life. I thus understood that beyond the teachings, you could be a trainer, as a way of transcending the overwhelming, even suffocating social standards of beauty.
The battle is constant, even at fifty, in this period of great hormonal changes. Despite the experience, despite the critical sense of our world, despite the knowledge and the diplomas, the look at oneself through the prism of others requires a lot of love and time!
Dear body, when I left this shop, I chose a swimsuit that doesn’t hide you, that lets the love handles, stretch marks and everything that makes you you, even if a little embarrassed, show. For you, for me, for women and the youngest. Sisterhood and pride in diversity.
Live the summer !