I need to think like an 11 year old more often.

Last night I took Tommy, my 11 year old son, Xmas* shopping for his dad. I wasn't feeling well so I just threw on a long sleeve tee and the jeans I'd worn the day before and grabbed my coat to leave. I had no bra on and believe me, it's not a good look, and I didn't even have real shoes on, just a pair of dirty black Uggs. I just didn't care what I looked like, frankly. 

Then Tommy saw me and looked me up and down and furrowed his brow. He put his hands on my muffin top (which I'm kind of sensitive about, anyway) and told me to suck it in. I told him I can only suck in my belly, not my sides. (!!!) He looked at my chest and sighed, then told me to turn to the side and looked at my mama belly and my ratty old jeans. The look on his face said he did not approve of what he saw. I started to get defensive because I was not about to be told I was too embarrassing to to go shopping with at 7pm at a Walmart, and I wasn't very happy with him thinking he got preapproval of my outfits anyway.

Then he did something strange. He grabbed my left hand and checked my wedding ring and said, "I guess it's okay since you have that on. I was worried you'd leave it at home." And then I realized that he thought I looked too sexy to go out in public! I even asked him, "Are you saying that I might attract men and they need to be able to see that I'm married?" He looked at me like he thought I was crazy. "You sound like you're taking that as a compliment. Okay then, but I dont see how it's a good thing."

He saw me, whom he apparently thinks is pretty, in clothes he saw as flaunting my figure, and got concerned that I might attract too much male attention.

I know it sounds weird, but when he thought I looked dangerously good all dressed like a schlub, it made me feel really good. I need to stop thinking I look okay despite my flaws, and start thinking that they're not flaws and that I just look good, period.

*Did you know that when you write it with an X, you "take the Christ out of Christmas" and it becomes a secular holiday?

A few of my favorite things

Long flannel nightgowns with lace at the collar
Thick heavy books that feel like you're eating them as you read
Poems by people who don't care what you think of them
Men who demand intelligence
Soft socks that don't dig in at the top
Crinkly quilts that get softer the more you use them
Cats that sleep next to you on the bed
Sleeping curled up like puppies
Thick hearty soup that warms to the core
Hot coffee/tea/cocoa/cider sipped slowly
Shoes that go with everything
Hot showers that never run cold
Big hugs from small children
Woodburning fireplaces
Pajamas with feet
Underwear that stays on the outside
Small chocolates while menstruating
Rainy weather
A soft chair
An oversized cardigan

Footy pajamas

Heavy blankets

A cat on my lap

Blowing my nose with tissues that have lotion in them

Cleaning my glasses with tissues that don't have lotion in them

Being able to tell the difference before smearing my glasses with lotion.

Crinkly beards

My tattoos

My tattoos were born when I was 13 years old.
A child with a pin and purloined ink, stabbing in secret for days, until I had . . .
a dot.

My tattoos came from different places, different people, different Mes.
My tattoos say "What was I thinking?"
Say "There was no purpose,"
Say teenage rebellion on permanent display.
My tattoos remind me "That was the boy I loved when I loved the wrong boy," 
"Don't wait to sober up in a shop of buzzing needles on your 21st birthday,"
"And never celebrate psych ward release with a haircut OR tattoo."

My tattoos are a scrapbook of bad decisions but also of who I was when I made them.
Of a hurt little girl trying to paint herself bad ass,
Of a death that never happened but still I mourned,
Of who I was and who I wanted to be.

My tattoos illustrate my life in chronological order.
The birth of my children,
the loves of my life,
the death of a parent.

So much ink stabbed into me,
violently engraved by sterile strangers' hands,
graffiti that will not wash off.

My tattoos are aging poorly, drooping, stretching, wrinkling, folding in upon themselves.
A dragon with cellulite,
a butterfly with shaving scars,
a fairy with stretch marks and all with a story or lesson I lived. 

No meaningful sleeves or spiritual back pieces,
just disconnected images from art books,
from flash posters,
from google
image
search.
None of them match because I was never the same person twice and still I'll get more
Because my scrapbook is not finished yet.

More children born,
more loves in my life,
more dead parents to immortalize on mortal canvas.
Ink will be my memory when my memory fades.
Pictures will remind me of my life when I forget my own name
and I have lived so much life to remember.

Who needs Borneo, anyway?

Beautiful, delicious, too much, not enough, those are opinions, not objective terms. I hate wine and lots of people love it. Neither they nor I are wrong because it's all a matter of personal taste. So the next time you want to start a sentence with, "I know I'm not beautiful but," or, "I'm not the sexiest but," just don't. Because for one thing, if you say that to people, they'll take your word for it, but also because you are beautiful and you are the sexiest. People find all kinds of things personally attractive and you are no less likely than anyone else to have attributes that will drive a percentage of the population crazy. There are folks who love weight, folks who don't give a shit about perfect skin, folks who hate thick hair because it gets all over everything. And their tastes are not invalid or abnormal, and they're not fetishes either. A guy who loves armpit hair, a round belly, or  frizzy hair is not a freak. He is a person with personal tastes just like anyone else. So say, "I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea but," and realize that no one is. Everyone looks hideous to someone and beautiful to someone else. Hell, I know I'm hot af because my husband tells me. Am I hot to everyone? Not by a long shot. I'm sure there are a few people in Borneo or wherever who would swipe left, but I don't have the time to worry about them. And neither do you!

Normality

I used to want to be normal but I could never quite pull it off. Too many subtleties to pick up on, nuances of accepted behavior I never really got. When I was really young and idealistic I thought that someday I'd meet someone with whom I could be normal. Where all of my coping skills like humor and hyperactivity and false affectations would just go away. And I did meet that guy, a couple times, but they didnt like an unfunny Chuck. They wanted someone who would entertain them, not depend on them. But when I met this last guy, he found me entertaining when I wasn't trying. All my social mistakes were just endearing quirks to him. So now we're abnormal together. And it doesn't suck anymore.