Ache

The house is quiet. Pure bliss. My youngest is napping and my oldest is at school. The notorious List runs through my mind: clothes to be folded, crumbs covering the dining room floor, scattered kids toys clashing with the home aesthetic.

I sit.

Air forces from my lungs, a giant balloon deflated. For a few moments I stare at the little stain on the wall—the month old remnant from a shaken fruit pouch. My mind is blank as I feel the familiar weight of unease and discontentment. It is always there, but in the midst of child-fueled chaos it was momentarily forgotten. I think back on the morning as the day sat before me. It was a day filled with endless possibilities: finishing crafts, deep cleaning projects, organization, a long walk with Charlie, energy to write—there are always things I want to write—a chance to sit and read, time in the garden to get my hands dirty, baking dessert for a friend. 

But none of that happened. 

None of it ever happens. 

Instead, I barely hold my mind together as I am overwhelmed by traditional “homemaking” duties. I am capable, but I fight for effectiveness and productivity. My experience of adulthood is not one of ease. 

So while my littlest sleeps, I pick up my phone and scroll, my mind filling with a unique combination of discontent and anticipation. There is so much beauty, so much creativity, so much mesmerizing content. 

We were created to appreciate beauty. 

We were created to create.

I simultaneously feel an ache to embody the beauty I see on my glowing screen and a desire to contribute to the beauty. But there I sit, swiping my thumb up the screen, mindless, never satisfied, just one more, only two more minutes, almost done.

And then he is crying.

Another respite wasted coveting the lives and beauty of strangers.

I feel jeans dig into my lower stomach, the part of my body that stubbornly holds onto the shape of bearing my precious children. The part of my body that I desperately want to love and appreciate, but the part of my body that I despise. I think of the women on my screen, the way their bodies fit perfectly into clothes I long to wear. The way there are no wrinkles, stretch marks, or lumps on their abdomen. 

There is only smooth silky skin. 

I think of the chocolate chips I stuffed and berate myself for an opportunity lost, once again, to achieve the form that I desperately desire. I think of the countless mornings I have pushed my body in exercise, the sense of strength in my legs and torso (unfortunately not yet in my arms), the understanding that I am caring for this body that has done so much and worked so hard. And then I think of the way I look in the mirror: small breasts drooping, extra skin around my navel, a soft cliff at the bottom of my stomach casting shadows onto the space below.

The ache to be perfect, feel sexy and desireable, fills me until I could burst. Holding in the pain squeezes tears from my eye: the leak of self-pity. 

There is nothing more lonely then existing with a low self-image. There is no one with whom you can share. 

“What are you talking about? You look great!” 

“I think you’re beautiful.” 

“Your stomach created life. That is something to celebrate, not hate.”

But I do hate it. 

I hate the way my hips more closely resemble a square than an ideal smooth curve.

I hate the way I exercise consistently with little physical results.

I hate the way cheese and chocolate fill my mind.

I hate the lower ledge of my torso, the protrustion that screams of my lack of control, and betrays my relationship with food.

I hate that I cannot live free from these images that fill my mind—images of bodies that I see as perfect, bodies that are different than mine. 

I hate that I cannot step away from my phone. It calls to me. The glowing, flashing, beautiful images pull at me.