Everything you wrote here resonates. I'm always happy to see you and hear from you, and it does not need to be on a regular cadence. Life has me under its boot right now, a long line of adult-grade hardships that are pushing me underwater in different ways. I'm lonely and aware that I am struggling, so the flash of a familiar face and a familiar voice, searching, is great, great comfort. You keep posting and trying to post, and I'll keep thinking about posting and trying to post. Maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't, but today this feels like enough. Deep gratitude. <3
Oh, Stacy, thank you for this. Your words are great comfort to me, too. I have also been feeling the pressure of that boot, and "lonely and aware that I'm struggling" resonates, too. I'm sorry you're in this kind of a time. For me, part of what makes it harder is that writing often feels out of reach. Like, I'm so far below the surface that I can't get to the place where the words are. Especially if I sit down with the purpose of trying to write my way through. What I love about this evolution of this piece is that it began as an exercise, an invitation that might have gone a hundred different ways. It allowed me to come at one thing I've been wrestling with sideways, rather than straight on. Sending you love, and looking forward to hearing from you whenever that might be.
What an eloquent post--I've been having similar thoughts about my body. It's a perfectly capable body, carrying more pounds than I would like, but still able to do so much. I have been trying to appreciate this body, this time period, while also getting better positioned to age with strength and grace. Thank you for your words.
Yes--I am wanting to be positioned to age with strength and grace, too! I think to do that I have to let go of ideas I used to have about my body, especially the ones that are no longer true of it. I have to more fully be in the body I have now. Thank you for taking the time to let me know how this landed for you.
Hi Rita. I read everything you write and feel like we’re still in touch after all these years.
I connect with your thoughts about bidding a fond farewell to that younger body. Cherish those memories…
I’ve been struggling with my hair, which is now gray, curly, and frizzy! I try to turn around every complaint about my body or health. As in, be glad you still have hair!
Marcie! I love hearing from you. I would love to see that gray, curly, frizzy hair in person. And your turn around makes me smile; your young you was that way, too. I can hear you saying "be glad you still have hair!" Wryly. I have such fond memories of our time working together. We were both so young! Though I thought you were so much an adult in comparison to me. (You were, but not really that much older, I know now.)
This is the second essay of yours that just has me in tears almost entirely throughout. Pass the tissues! I feel this weakening grasp on the physicality of my younger self while at the same time looking aghast at the changes creeping in (my drastically thinning hair for one!) and struggling with coming to terms with them. When I photograph people who aren't happy with how they look I like to tell them that future you will look back on how you look today and say wow, I look amazing! And it's so true! Knowing that helps me stay in the picture too and smile like I mean it in photographs. I love what you wrote about your grandmother - when my daughter was 4 she told me many times that she loved my "wibbly wobbly arms" and she loves how squishy my mom's arms are too and I just have to laugh and love our very strong but yes wibbly wobbly arms through her eyes.
I love "wibbly wobbly arms"! I realized your truth about photos about ten years ago or so, and I remind myself of it every time I look at a photo of myself with displeasure. I wonder if it isn't so much that we dislike the way we look as it is that it just doesn't look like the us we think we are, the one in our mind's eye? For me, though, the greater discomfort these days is coming from changes in function more than appearance. So many small, everyday things I have long taken for granted are changing. Glad to have you for company as I'm working through that. We can cry and laugh together. 🙂
Absolutely, Rita! I am here for it! So much of our vanity is about how we look but what really matters is function - something we absolutely take for granted and don't realize it until it slips through our fingers. I marvel at watching children climb, fall, hang, roll with such ease and feel so far away from that, and yet future me will say oh you had it so good at 42 you have no idea. And so it goes...
This made me cry. Again. I did not want my lack of time to post at the line level love I wish to mean I did not post at all. So grateful for your words, and you, Rita. 💜
You are so generous with your love and time, Emily. I don't know how you do all that you do. I certainly can't! So I appreciate this comment deeply. (Hope they were the good kind of tears. 💚)
I hear 'ya! I feel much older now than I did even 5 years ago. Our little girl bodies did so much without a care, now I have to care for my body like an older person. It's annoying... but better to accept it rather than forgetting and doing irreparable harm to myself. May we all have the grace to carry on in a healthy way.
I love all of this so much. Finally being in your body is such a challenging place to reach, especially with the pressures from society. My mom and I were actually having a conversation about this over breakfast this morning—about society and conditioning. She’s realizing now just how much of an impact it’s had on her, and she’s starting to have her own awakening. It’s really amazing to witness.
I also love the picture of you—please keep taking more! And the photo of everyone gathering to watch the birds is just beautiful. Moments like these are what life is all about.
We were given so much garbage about bodies (starting with how most of the women in my family complained about how "fat" they were all the time--which I don't blame them for because we were all swimming in such toxic cultural waters, but still--it had an impact). I felt a little funny about sharing this because I don't more firmly reject all that conditioning , but the truth is that I struggle to accept the body I have now even though I KNOW it's crap. Wishing your mom so much peace on her journeys. And yes, I love the photo of all us strangers gathering to watch birds go to bed for the night. It's such a Portland kind of thing, and I go as much to watch the humans as the birds. (Working on the photos of myself. I love yours so much, and you really have shifted me in practice on this.)
Rita, I'm not sure how you did it, but you managed to crawl all the way inside my head and have a little stroll with this one! Were I to start listing all the lines that felt meaningful, I'd darn near copy down the whole essay, so I'll resist that urge. I do particularly appreciate the reminder to consider how we felt, as younger people, about our mothers and grandmothers. It never occurred to me to want them to be wearing different bodies than the ones I knew them in right then!
I'm sorry September was so hard on you. Here's hoping fall will be smooth sailing and that we will both find ourselves better able to attach to the present. What a relief that would be!
Maybe we all need to love ourselves the way we once loved our mothers and grandmothers, and see ourselves as we once saw them? I'm going to try that one on the next time I find myself being unkind to my body. I really enjoyed your piece this morning on the topic of attaching to the present; that is such a key to being OK in the moments when my body is in pain or lacks energy to do the things I want to do. I think if we can attach to the present, we'll find life is smoother sailing no matter what's going on (both personally and in the larger world, which as you noted is really tough now).
Everything you wrote here resonates. I'm always happy to see you and hear from you, and it does not need to be on a regular cadence. Life has me under its boot right now, a long line of adult-grade hardships that are pushing me underwater in different ways. I'm lonely and aware that I am struggling, so the flash of a familiar face and a familiar voice, searching, is great, great comfort. You keep posting and trying to post, and I'll keep thinking about posting and trying to post. Maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't, but today this feels like enough. Deep gratitude. <3
Oh, Stacy, thank you for this. Your words are great comfort to me, too. I have also been feeling the pressure of that boot, and "lonely and aware that I'm struggling" resonates, too. I'm sorry you're in this kind of a time. For me, part of what makes it harder is that writing often feels out of reach. Like, I'm so far below the surface that I can't get to the place where the words are. Especially if I sit down with the purpose of trying to write my way through. What I love about this evolution of this piece is that it began as an exercise, an invitation that might have gone a hundred different ways. It allowed me to come at one thing I've been wrestling with sideways, rather than straight on. Sending you love, and looking forward to hearing from you whenever that might be.
What an eloquent post--I've been having similar thoughts about my body. It's a perfectly capable body, carrying more pounds than I would like, but still able to do so much. I have been trying to appreciate this body, this time period, while also getting better positioned to age with strength and grace. Thank you for your words.
Yes--I am wanting to be positioned to age with strength and grace, too! I think to do that I have to let go of ideas I used to have about my body, especially the ones that are no longer true of it. I have to more fully be in the body I have now. Thank you for taking the time to let me know how this landed for you.
Hi Rita. I read everything you write and feel like we’re still in touch after all these years.
I connect with your thoughts about bidding a fond farewell to that younger body. Cherish those memories…
I’ve been struggling with my hair, which is now gray, curly, and frizzy! I try to turn around every complaint about my body or health. As in, be glad you still have hair!
Marcie! I love hearing from you. I would love to see that gray, curly, frizzy hair in person. And your turn around makes me smile; your young you was that way, too. I can hear you saying "be glad you still have hair!" Wryly. I have such fond memories of our time working together. We were both so young! Though I thought you were so much an adult in comparison to me. (You were, but not really that much older, I know now.)
This is the second essay of yours that just has me in tears almost entirely throughout. Pass the tissues! I feel this weakening grasp on the physicality of my younger self while at the same time looking aghast at the changes creeping in (my drastically thinning hair for one!) and struggling with coming to terms with them. When I photograph people who aren't happy with how they look I like to tell them that future you will look back on how you look today and say wow, I look amazing! And it's so true! Knowing that helps me stay in the picture too and smile like I mean it in photographs. I love what you wrote about your grandmother - when my daughter was 4 she told me many times that she loved my "wibbly wobbly arms" and she loves how squishy my mom's arms are too and I just have to laugh and love our very strong but yes wibbly wobbly arms through her eyes.
I love "wibbly wobbly arms"! I realized your truth about photos about ten years ago or so, and I remind myself of it every time I look at a photo of myself with displeasure. I wonder if it isn't so much that we dislike the way we look as it is that it just doesn't look like the us we think we are, the one in our mind's eye? For me, though, the greater discomfort these days is coming from changes in function more than appearance. So many small, everyday things I have long taken for granted are changing. Glad to have you for company as I'm working through that. We can cry and laugh together. 🙂
Absolutely, Rita! I am here for it! So much of our vanity is about how we look but what really matters is function - something we absolutely take for granted and don't realize it until it slips through our fingers. I marvel at watching children climb, fall, hang, roll with such ease and feel so far away from that, and yet future me will say oh you had it so good at 42 you have no idea. And so it goes...
At the edge of 60 now, I can say: Yes, 42 had it really good! (But 59 does, too, and it's nice to fully appreciate that.)
Poignant and so relatable. Thank you, Rita, for the many important reminders in this post. This one will stay with me. 💚
Thank you, Sue, for letting me know.
Of course! Thank you for sharing your heart.
💙💚💜
This made me cry. Again. I did not want my lack of time to post at the line level love I wish to mean I did not post at all. So grateful for your words, and you, Rita. 💜
You are so generous with your love and time, Emily. I don't know how you do all that you do. I certainly can't! So I appreciate this comment deeply. (Hope they were the good kind of tears. 💚)
( the best kind 💜)
I hear 'ya! I feel much older now than I did even 5 years ago. Our little girl bodies did so much without a care, now I have to care for my body like an older person. It's annoying... but better to accept it rather than forgetting and doing irreparable harm to myself. May we all have the grace to carry on in a healthy way.
I love all of this so much. Finally being in your body is such a challenging place to reach, especially with the pressures from society. My mom and I were actually having a conversation about this over breakfast this morning—about society and conditioning. She’s realizing now just how much of an impact it’s had on her, and she’s starting to have her own awakening. It’s really amazing to witness.
I also love the picture of you—please keep taking more! And the photo of everyone gathering to watch the birds is just beautiful. Moments like these are what life is all about.
We were given so much garbage about bodies (starting with how most of the women in my family complained about how "fat" they were all the time--which I don't blame them for because we were all swimming in such toxic cultural waters, but still--it had an impact). I felt a little funny about sharing this because I don't more firmly reject all that conditioning , but the truth is that I struggle to accept the body I have now even though I KNOW it's crap. Wishing your mom so much peace on her journeys. And yes, I love the photo of all us strangers gathering to watch birds go to bed for the night. It's such a Portland kind of thing, and I go as much to watch the humans as the birds. (Working on the photos of myself. I love yours so much, and you really have shifted me in practice on this.)
Thanks for the person who shared this, great read :-)
Rita, I'm not sure how you did it, but you managed to crawl all the way inside my head and have a little stroll with this one! Were I to start listing all the lines that felt meaningful, I'd darn near copy down the whole essay, so I'll resist that urge. I do particularly appreciate the reminder to consider how we felt, as younger people, about our mothers and grandmothers. It never occurred to me to want them to be wearing different bodies than the ones I knew them in right then!
I'm sorry September was so hard on you. Here's hoping fall will be smooth sailing and that we will both find ourselves better able to attach to the present. What a relief that would be!
Maybe we all need to love ourselves the way we once loved our mothers and grandmothers, and see ourselves as we once saw them? I'm going to try that one on the next time I find myself being unkind to my body. I really enjoyed your piece this morning on the topic of attaching to the present; that is such a key to being OK in the moments when my body is in pain or lacks energy to do the things I want to do. I think if we can attach to the present, we'll find life is smoother sailing no matter what's going on (both personally and in the larger world, which as you noted is really tough now).
Wow. That was lovely.
Thank you!
🥲🥲Gosh I’m only half way through but what a tear jerker right from the off! There’s a frog in my throat and everything.
I am a huge fan of writing letters - this being a most recent one I wrote to my younger self:
https://warriorwithin.substack.com/p/what-would-you-say-to-18-year-old
Writing love letters to ourselves is so healing! Thank you. I loved this!