A lot happened in my life last year, not just my medical
diagnosis. I started buying (and wearing) dresses. Lots and lots of dresses.
Mostly blue, which is only strange because my favorite color is purple. But I
can rock the blue and so I do. (Bad rhyming is quite deliberate, I assure you.)
I tried to be more social, which is always a challenge for me. I auditioned for
(and was cast in) a play. Ummm…I’m sure I did other things. I must have.
I’ve given this some thought, however, and there is
one thing that is overwhelmingly frightening about the past year and this
entire experience with vaginismus…the fact that at some point I let a man see
me naked.
Nothing scared me quite so much this past Halloween
season as the fact that I let The Guy see me naked. I apologize for putting the
vision of me naked in anyone’s head, so it’s ok. Scream and get it out of your
system. I can wait. *pausing to put in
ear plugs to avoid actually hearing the screams of the masses*
When I stop and give ANY thought whatsoever to this,
I'm slightly traumatized. Oh, not because we were naked – that happened so fast
I’m not sure I realized it until my clothes were off – but because I’m not sure
how the sight of my large, white derrière didn't blind The Guy for life.
I don’t know anyone who seems really comfortable with
someone seeing them naked for the first time. Maybe those people exist and I
may even know some of them, but I can’t name names (because most sane people do
not talk about this kind of thing). Allowing someone to see you that way is
allowing yourself to be very vulnerable. You are literally putting it all out
there without being sure how the other person is going to react.
Of course, if you are in a romantic moment, then one
can assume that the other party is going to react in a positive manner or, at
the very least, be so caught up in the moment that they don’t react in a
negative manner. Once again, since The Guy seems to still be alive and well
with all vision intact, I’m going to assume he survived any possible trauma.
Does it really matter what someone else thinks? Well,
sure it does! Nobody wants to believe they were found lacking and certainly, if
anyone treats you that way it’s time to move on. I mean, if you can’t
appreciate what you see, I’m not letting you look anymore. It only seems fair.
That said, still…I’m quite surprised I was ok with letting
a man – someone who was, in many respects, a stranger – see me naked since it
had been a while. Having been involved in community theater since I was a kid,
I actually don’t have any big qualms about changing clothes in front of people,
male or female. It’s simply doing what needs to be done to get the show on the
road. But taking every stitch of clothing off my body and letting someone look
at it? Well, yeah…it still kind of freaks me out.
But I recovered and I’m better all around for the
experience. What another person thinks of my body isn’t nearly as important as
what I think of it and I’m quite proud of my body. Oh, I have NO plans to run
around showing it off to anyone. I am infinitely more modest that one might
assume. But I know how hard I’ve worked to lose weight and tone up places. I
have more places that need some toning up, but I’ll get there and if I don’t?
Well, so be it. Plus, I conquered the fear of letting a man see me naked. Heck,
I might even consider doing it again some time. And that, my friends, is what I think we can call body confidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment