I usually blog when I am procrastinating. Today is only a little different. Today, I set out to get real work done, but my angry hip is extra angry and I can’t focus. So I thought I’d go to bed early and get some sleep, but I also can’t sleep. I can almost always sleep, but when I can’t—I blog.

I’ve had these ideas on my mind for a very long time. But I owed so many people SO many projects I said I would complete SO many moons ago … and that left me feeling guilty about blogging about my own stuff.

But guilt is for people who have too much time on their hands. I am not one of those people.

And so it begins. Women. Bodies. Shame. Joy…

A good friend (a skinny friend) admitted she struggled with her weight. Another asked if I thought she should get braces. All I wanted to do was hug them both until they couldn’t see.

Like pretty much everyone ever, there are days when nothing fits right and my hair is taunting me to pull out the clippers and the two-inch guard. There are days when I feel so lost about what I should do with my life and how long it will take to figure out.

But I am one of the lucky ones, because MOST days do not feel that way at all.

You see, I grew up painfully aware that I was an ugly duckling. I might be still, except I got tired of feeling shame.

I got tired of resenting my snaggle teeth.

I got tired of begrudging my hooked nose.

I got tired of straightening my curly hair.

I stopped playing into the shame. And this year I bought a bathing suit without trying it on. It’s pretty much perfect. I wore it this week without shaving my legs and I felt wonderful and carefree as I cannon-balled into the pool.

Also this year I bought red lipstick. It only took me 27 years to realize how great the color RED can be. I wore it for the first time to a meeting and my lovely friend Claire said, “We have on the same lipstick! It suits you.” *happy sigh* 

This week I wore my red lipstick at the beach three days in a row.

I’m not sure when I will again feel like nothing looks right and my hair is taunting me. But I hope I’ll remember to wear my lipstick and grin with all my pointy teeth showing and stick my crooked nose into a good book and dance around my room until my love-handles jiggle and my angry hip screams. Because this, my friends, is a better way to treat a woman’s body than to shame it, don’t you think?