I never had much in the way of boobs. One of my favorite tricks is still to wear a double-layered camisole and pass it off as a bra. If I’ve got to go business casual, it’s A cup all the way. Because as my then four year old niece once exclaimed, after brazenly looking down my shirt, “You don’t got no boobs!”

I HAVE them, all right. They’re just….petite. 

But just because the girls are of modest size doesn’t mean the rest of me is. I always had a bottom-half-of-the-hourglass thing going on, which I realized in 5th grade ballet. Everyone else could put their backside against the wall and block daylight, while I had a distinct lower S curve that refused to flatten. 

Luckily for me, most other people don’t look like 5th grade ballerinas either. For another, the world’s gaze does not fall harshly upon young women with generously proportioned butts. No one ever mistook me for a supermodel, except for that one time at the Ritz……wait, kidding, never happened, never been there. But seriously, while no one ever “scouted” me or screamed, “There’s our next cover girl!” the world at large gave a pass of approval to my relatively thin, white, healthy, non-disabled young body.

I didn’t put too much thought into my body back then. I think that’s one of the huge blessings of having a fully functional body and one that the world around you largely categorizes as good – I turned my attention to what my body could do instead. I joyfully used it to do stuff – dancing, swimming, running, hiking and ice skating, with the occasional skiing or white water rafting trip thrown in.

I still love to use my body to do stuff.

But a few things have changed. Creeping up on 40 as I am, the “young” thing no longer applies. And increasingly, neither does “thin”. 

The nutritionists call it “apple shaped”. The bros call it “love handles”. I call it “MAT”. Y’all, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have WAP. Me, I have MAT. 

Middle. Aged. TUMMY. Boom!

That’s way cuter than the medical term. Which is…..wait for it….abdominal obesity. Aka, what happens when you’ve had a kid, your metabolism has stepped onto the slow train, you do a decent-but-not-amazing job at eating right and exercising and oh by the way, you are a parent with a full time job so it’s not like there are endless hours of the day just waiting to be filled with crunches and fitness smoothies. 

“You” of course, meaning me. And many other folks. There’s a reason those belly-squeezing bodysuits are a thing. 

And yet. Slowly, slowly, the world is getting less Barbie-saturated. When I was a kid, I never saw images like the The Full Body Project or read anything like The Body is Not An Apology. The fierce and fabulous Lindy West had not yet come into her hilarious, razor-sharp, fat-claiming self.

We still have a long way to go. But the powerful people in the links above are just a few who have disrupted the nasty false narrative that the only ‘good’ bodies to inhabit are thin, young, non-disabled and more than likely white. That’s like saying the only ‘good’ ice cream flavor is non-fat vanilla. Only a whole lot more harmful, because it degrades and downplays so many of us and our amazing, beautiful, capable and life-giving bodies. And when I say life-giving, I’m not talking about having babies. I’m talking about each of us. No matter what internal wars you may have with your body, there it is, giving you life every day. 

Maybe my MAT will grow. Maybe it will shrink. Maybe it will become my signature look and my grandchildren will nestle their little heads into these curves in thirty years. This is MY physical form, not to mention MY life here. I’ll make the decisions, thanks patriarchy. 

I do want something to change, though, and it’s not my MAT. It’s the little cricks and creaks and slowdowns. it’s my sometimes-hurty knees, the fact that I get winded more easily than I used to and I get tired after a little weight-lifting and I just had colonoscopy number four. For a long time, I had the sweet deal that what I was inclined to do naturally was all it took to feel healthy in my body. That party is coming to an end.

So I’ve decided it’s time to start paying a bit more attention to physical me. To do the weight lifting, to eat the fiber, to stop and think if I really want to eat something or if I’m just doing it out of habit or boredom or twisted social obligation. Thrilling stuff? Not on its own. But I feel like by doing it, It boosts my chances of being here and happy and healthy and doing things in my beautiful life-giving body for a long time to come.

With or without rolls in the middle.