"This Is Who I Am"

I bought this book about a year ago, browsed through it, and put in back on the shelf. I recently picked it up again and this time I went deeper. It's a tribute to, and a celebration of, 54 different women. Amazon describes it: "The book features women from all over the country, ages 19 to 95, of all sizes and shapes, ethnicities, and life experiences, who were willing to expose their naked physical forms in This Is Who I Am."



Some of these women are traditionally "beautiful", but none is a professional model. I love their stories and their courage.



Michelle, age 58, is a cancer survivor who subsequently lost all her hair. Here's what she wrote about the change in her appearance:



I look like a seal—a cute seal. . . I’ve become a nonperson. When I go out without my wig, all people see is my bald head, and it scares them. Their eyes quickly dart away. Luckily, I’ve found that the more I open my heart to other people, the easier maintaining my weight and adapting to being bald becomes. We all have something. Mine’s just more obvious.

Jennifer, 33, is beautifully pregnant. She says:

For years I never gave my body much thought except for the things

that I hated about it. Pregnancy pulled me back into my body, and for

that I will always be grateful: for my full breasts, my soft belly . . . I even love the stretch mark that is a deep rose color, a crescent moon stemming from my belly button.

I don’t know anyone who totally feels at home in her body except for my

toddler daughter, who is too young to feel ashamed of anything. She likes to take off her clothes as soon as she comes home, and there she stands, plays, sits, climbs, and runs throughout the house, gloriously naked except for her diaper (and sometimes not even that). A sublime, beautiful body.

I love that these women allowed themselves to be photographed so candidly, and how they speak of their evolution of body acceptance. They are not eternally youthful, or slim-hipped or lush-haired. What a relief!





And here is my new cropped hair, blown straight-ish. I am having fun playing with it, and will style it curly later. It's quite a shock to my system, and I frankly prefer longer curls on me. But my hair was so dry and damaged, it needed a new start. And what's more energizing than a new start?

I'll probably let it grow to the top of my shoulders again, but I'll have fun with it in the meantime. "This is who I am", for the moment anyway. Do you enjoy the occasional start-over with your hair, or make-up, or style?



Enjoy who you are today! xox