Pretty Girl Rock

One of the more fantastic husbandly qualities my husband possesses is his ability to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world.  Not just the only girl for him, but the only worth being with, worth looking at, worth knowing.  And while I know this to be false (in general, not necessarily for HIM), it can be the most reassuring and lovely feeling especially since it's grounded not in how I look, but WHO I AM.

The other day we were leaving the library when I said that I was glad Lilly cut my hair because the natural waves in my hair give it so much more body and texture.  It makes me feel pretty.  To which my awesome husband did not respond until an inappropriate amount of time passed (he was looking at a book, after all) and he said, "I always think 'pretty' when I look at you." And I believe him.

Charlie hasn't ever seemed to base my beauty in how I look or how much I weigh or what I wear.  There is  a picture I have that was taken of me and Noah just after Noah was born.  I was young and thin and Matt used to say to people who saw the photo, "Didn't Kanani look good?"  Notice the past tense.  A husband shouldn't speak of his wife in such a way, but what was worse to me was that he actually THOUGHT of me that way.

Anyway, this blog is getting away from me.  The important thing here isn't how my husband makes me feel, although that's a wonder all it's own.  It's that I know I need to do that for myself.  My friend Meredith recently posted a blog (to which I hope she doesn't mind me linking) about what we see on the outside and what's going on inside, and it served as another reminder that I should love myself no matter what.  If Charlie, who is obviously not me, can love me for me, why shouldn't I?  No matter the size.  Meredith's blog poses several questions you might ask yourself to perhaps remind yourself that the exercise is more than the vanity of looking good.  It's about getting healthy and feeling better as a whole. And though the small, most insignificant part of my brain wants so badly to be skinny again because it equates skinny with looking good and being loved and accepted by others, I really just want to be healthy.

But even beyond that, I wish I could love and accept myself exactly as is.  I wish it were just and only about being healthy and having a more active lifestyle.  It should be about the quality of my character.  It should be about how well I love others and how I can help to make life better for all of us, even if on the small but totally relevant level of family and not necessarily the world.  I am, after all, still me no matter the size of my shorts.  I still matter no matter what store I shop at.  It's not that I'm suggesting that I should never challenge myself.  What I'm suggesting is that the reasons matter sometimes more than the outcome.  That perhaps a cadre of questions similar to those Meredith poses should be created to measure how accurately we see ourselves and love ourselves, as is.  And maybe those questions, and the eventual questions your answers will raise, are equally important in gauging our ideas of personal fitness.