Body by Mom
by Jean Reidy
(First published in Strut Magazine March 2006)
I’m not naturally attractive. But with mascara, lipstick, foundation, body bronzer, hair root lift, velcro rollers, Nice N’ Easy 120, and The WonderBra, I’m unnaturally passable, at best. Wearing the marks of motherhood like medals, I’m one of the most decorated women in suburbia. My body has been around the block more times than my stroller. So, I’m not quick to judge the seasoned woman who chooses to be tucked, tightened and tuned-up. If I perform an emergency brow shaping on myself in the morning, I can’t snub the gal who has a lid lift that afternoon. Could it be that if cosmetic surgery was as safe as petroleum jelly and as affordable as Maybelline Ultralash, I too would spring for a few alterations? But where would they start on a mom like me? Would they straighten my crooked toes, stubbed countless times on a safety stool, in the dark room of a child with a nightmare? Would they smooth the few scars about my ankles, grazed by bike gears, as I ran alongside a preschooler tired of training wheels?Would they zap the web of blood vessels on my right shin, where I’ve stopped a few well-kicked soccer balls? “Moms don’t need shin guards,” my daughter proudly announced to her teammates. Would I let them tuck the loose skin around my tummy, which stretched for four children and now, like a favorite swimsuit, has long lost it’s elasticity? Would they firm and fill my empty, mismatched breasts, from which colicky babies nursed endlessly, sucking for dear life as though their lips would fall off if they detached? Could they right my stance to eliminate the surge and sway at the hips that balanced a toddler on one side and three grocery sacks on the other? Would they laser the vein, under my eye, burst in childbirth, now bulging on the face of the crazed, glazed psycho who occupies my body each night around 5:00? And what about the creases? You know, those hugging my smile, which will deepen when my son blows out sixteen candles on his cake. Or those dividing my brow, which will deepen when he blows out a tire during his driver’s test.My eyes finally reach the top of my head. Humbly satisfied with the natural color I’ve gotten from a bottle, I relive each emergency room visit that sprouted each initial gray hair. I contemplate the current headfull, which came with clothing a two-year-old nudist, fighting fourth grade cliques, suiting a son in first football pads one day, and fitting his arm in a cast the next. Noticing a new wiry white sprout in the center of my bang, I wonder what calamity fertilized it. I apply a fresh coat of lipstick, tuck my tummy back into my jeans, add Nice and Easy to my grocery list and conclude, “I’ve worked hard for this body, I’m not ready to change it, just yet.” Hmm. But a little nail polish on those crooked toes might be nice.
