My Mom is Obsessed

I want to talk about my mother and the fact that she has become completely obsessed with her body image. First, in order to fully explain this phenomenon, I have to give a little backstory: My parents have been married for 23 years, albeit sometimes unhappily, and my mother had three kids. In that time span, she has constantly had a struggle with her weight, and countless doctors have told her to lose the extra poundage she’d gained.

This past March, my father had hip surgery, and my mother’s nervous system went into shock. Constantly fretting over dear ole dad, she didn’t eat, drank as much Raspberry Ice-flavored Crystal Light as she could get her hands on, and was running up and down two flights of stairs tending to my dad dozens of times a day. Now, how do you think this kind of activity affects a 55 year-old woman’s body? Exactly; she dropped her extra weight like it was no big deal. First it was a few pounds here and there, then she couldn’t fit into her old jeans anymore, and then, the best part of this story, is that her diabetes even started to show signs of backing off. She called me about a week ago to tell me that she now fits into a size 6 in Old Navy skinny jeans. Skinny Jeans on a 55 year-old mother of three!! How does this happen?

My father has since recovered quite nicely from his hip surgery, but mom has finally learned how to dramatically change her lifestyle in order to keep up with dad, who began to change the status of his health many years ago, about when he hit 50. Mom and dad then showed me that they achieved the impossible: they went on a two-week trip for their anniversary-didn’t want to kill each other- and managed to not take two naps in one day. Because they changed their health patterns, they were able to see and do more during the day.

I have a point, I promise, and it is this: Instead of surgically altering her body, my mother has managed to look youthful just by having the day-to-day stress of taking care of my father after surgery. Most people would say that the stress would cause her to look more haggard and aged, but somehow, the woman has, once again, defied convention and improved her appearance. She managed to achieve a youthful appearance without Botox injections, pilates, or extreme fasting. I commend her on her improvement in physical appearance and inner feelings on life now, as she seems happy with herself, to say nothing of the fact that she’s proud of accomplishing that which has burdened her for years.

How, then, can we learn from my mother? I really don’t think it would be wise to allow ourselves to get to the extreme that my mother was, then have a significant other go under the knife and stress us out, no. Rather, let’s start taking care of ourselves now while we still have the wherewithal to do so. Let’s fight Breast Cancer, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes-all conditions that so readily affect women more often than men. Let’s prevent our bones from depleting and dissolving away. Let’s obsess about our body image, not from the outside, but from within. The outside appearance will come in time, but we have to work from the inside out first. We have to know and be aware of what’s happening inside us in order to fully understand how the outside is going to change. From that, we can be like my mom: happy with who we are.

Cheers,
Patsy