It was bound to happen!

It happens every summer so this time around should be no different!
The Venus magazine came today.
Skanky perfect bodied bizactches.
UGH.

Here I am...and here's the deal. I don't need anyone to tell me that my body rocks. Because I'm a girl and I won't hear you anyway, if my head isn't *there* it won't matter. And only one person gets to "show" me that my body rocks (or so I show him? ha!)...so I don't need reassurance. I'm not looking for it.

Here are the facts:
I've had 4 kids.
I did that in 5 years.
I look FAN FREAKING TASTIC. I do. I met a man who was FLOORED when he heard I have four kids. He said "where'd they come from? Did they materialize out of thin air?!" Which he would NOT say if he saw what is under these clothes- but no matter. Everyone in the world sees me in clothes (cept the few lucky ducks that live with me, haha) so- whatever. I KNOW it. My entire life my smile has attracted all sorts of things/people to me. I might not look like Hilary Duff, or Swank for that matter. So what if I need my personality to complete the package? I happen to be ABUNDANT in personality too. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm good with who I am.

Cept for this little crisis that comes yearly when I'm looking through swim suit magazines because I do NOT- abstolutely, totally and completely- do NOT look like them. Not even a little bit. There isn't one part of me that can compete with any of it. Not the hair (hello unruly bedhead on my head)Not my feet, my legs, my arse, my hips, oh GOD not my hips or inner thighs, not my stomach- Oh, tummy...not what used to be my beautifully situated tah tahs, not my arms, which one day many moons ago were sculpted and pretty...not my shoulders, my back (HOW do we get backfat? Where the F does it come from?!)...not my face, which depends on my hair and my personality in order to get by...do you see this? I just trashed all of me. And I was almost fine before I looked at the magazine.

Almost fine because I happened to be in the elevator with stick people today. They were stick people, and they were perfectly made up, with long blonde hair, and perfectly put together, and they were not too loud, and they were "professional". What am I DOING there? Crazy curls, flowy dress on a fricken curvier body than I would "prefer" (on days like today), who was barking orders at Kari to get her up the last flight of stairs we were running today. WHO AM I?! I can tell you who I am NOT...oh, it's just so blantantly obvious who I am not. It was almost like being with my sisters for a full day- it makes me feel like I'm all wrong and just like I DO NOT BELONG HERE. I DON'T! I don't fit. It's bad right now, how WRONG and UNFITTING I feel.

Isn't that funny? Isn't it funny that I feel this way when there is a part of me that is very clear on how loved I am? How can I feel and be so loved and still DARE to feel so out of place and unfitting? Isn't that weird? Yet that's where I am, again, right now.

The good news is that tomorrow B will be in the office, and he's such a fabulously odd duck himself (in the all time best way possible...how MANY TIMES have I had that said to me about me? UGH!!! But I LOVE HIM! see? he's one of the best humans I know.....BAM! Another one. I wonder if he feels like this ever?) that I know that tomorrow I will not feel all by myself. I will feel SEEN tomorrow. There IS a difference between someone saying "I love you because of how you are." and someone saying "I love you because you are like me." Which he would never say, but he doesn't have to, because it's just....how it is.

Actually, the more I look around, the more I know that that is true of the people closest to me anyway.

Oh hell. We're off to the store. I put on a little black tank top and little khaki shorts- I'm sure they are too little, but have you been outside? Dizamn. It hot out (JB!!!! that was for you!) I'm going to strut around with my four kids and pretend that I belong in the world and I "fit" somewhere.

AND the Venus magazine went right into the garbage because CJ and Josh came home and the LAST thing they need to see is a bunch of airbrushed girls standing around like "SPANK ME WHILE I WEAR THIS BIKINI". Right where it belongs. In the GARBAGE.