Story – Page 22 – PurplePretoria

Nobody understands disdain like a woman whose man has found himself a new woman. Nobody understands self scrutiny and criticism quite the way a teenage girl does. Though for the teenage girl, this initial fear that she might not be ‘enough’ usually subsides. But then adulthood presents yet another card, the physical changes of growing older and of being pregnant [for some].

I once asked my mother what it felt like to be old. I definitely hope that I phrased it better than that.

“I feel like I’m still the same inside. It’s the outside that has changed,” she replied.

It is one of the paradoxes of life, I suppose. That your inner spirit would remain the same, influenced only by your experience of life while your outer body ages. Some have attempted to reflect the youthfulness they feel inside with silicon boobs and fillers but it has not been a total success. It is interesting that, the age at which most women will eventually wish they could freeze in time is the same face and body, that they did not at that point in time find beautiful. The severely fragmented body part fetish culture that is the norm today definitely makes it more difficult. It seems to condense women into only a pair of twerking bums or a private part.

It has its advantages. It compliments the age old running theme of the world – the power struggle between men and women, whereby the objectification and lessening of one part of the human population has scored us women very poorly on the value card.

A woman’s value has been tied to her beauty for a very long time. That is why, whenever we look into the mirror, more than looking for whether we are still beautiful, we look for whether we are still valuable.

And because women’s beauty has been tied to age (‘Sweet Sixteen’), we think our value has an expiry date. Many women joke that they have declared themselves the same age for many years. And those are the honest ones! That is why the dreaded, “How old do you think i am?” always actually means, do you think I’m STILL beautiful? Do you think I’m lovable?

Back to pregnancy

Pregnancy for me came with both the anxiety of spontaneous body changes, a sense of duality and a loss of connection to my body. A duality perceived and cultivated by righteous perfectionism that I struggled with during another season.

I got the round popping baby bump I wanted but later on in my trimesters I began to worry that it was a little too big. Having a short torso and a big baby not only meant that I got too tired to walk or stand for long periods of time without reeling back and forth but it also meant that my baby pushed out on my intra- abdominal muscles and affected my back alignment. And in these aspects, part of my fears of losing myself had manifested.

One evening at committee meeting for a wedding ceremony, seven months pregnant- tired, round and roughed up by acne, a friend of my mother’s came up to me and exclaimed, “You look beautiful!” My response was a muddled and confused, “Really?” and “Thank you” and then I rushed to the bathrooms filled with emotion and brimming tears. I could tell that she really meant it.

After birth

I would say, the first look after birth should be extended to at least a week. It is not just the swollen touched out body, it’s just that the demanding wails and absolute rights to the milk tanks is enough to burn you out.

But when you do take that first look, you must treat myself with dignity even though you might not like what you see. Your body will probably always remember that it carried a baby. Your heart does too. Treating yourself with dignity means speaking well to yourself and taking steps to get your physique where you want it to be. I have found, that yoga and dancing do that for me. Though I have not been free to do yoga due to the high risk of increasing my diastasis recti. This I did not anticipate.

In the meantime, I have discovered that it is important to appreciate our bodies WHOLLY but that it is also important to go deeper. We will most probably also find that we are good friends, business women, caretakers, professionals, good cooks, writers, dancers, singers, tailors and we offer much more than just tourist incentives.

“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain”

She picked up on energy very easily. She could sense that something was seething underneath a curt statement- anger on a pot boiling. She could sense when there was a wide un-navigable space between her and the person seated next to her. She could sense when there was a truth not being told.

Like on the evening she met the man who might have been her brother. She sensed that he would rather not be associated with her and her boyfriend- that he thought that their social status in his social group was not good for his hierarchy.

Like when the person who had drowned herself in the intricate details of her day was having her own. She could sense that she was not allowed in and that she was not just a guest but a spectator when she should have been part of the inside folk.

Like when she entered her workplace when the renovations had just been completed and there was a tug of war in the atmosphere, a tangible restlessness – it was then she understood what comfort there had always been – for the divide between him and his people- that the workplace should always come first and his entitled wife and children should not meddle in their affairs.

Like when her neighbour had asked,

“How come you lost your weight so easily?”

And the look on her face when she looked at her baby and said, “Ohhh, he is so cute.”

She could sense her apartment-neighbour’s sadness and irritation reeking on her clothes. She could sense when her sadness and irritation turned into a deep dislike- and she could tell that it was because she was not ‘the other woman’, she was not a housewife, she was still loved and still, ‘thin’. And she could feel it in her brief smile and how she would have rather have not said ‘Good morning’ and when she prolonged her conversation on the phone just so that they would not get out of their cars at the same time.

She could sense, in the way a colleague behaved, that he had probably been bullied in school, that he asserted his masculinity by touching, teasing or flirting with all the women he met- that he objectified women in order to subdue them and reduce them to one thing so that he would feel a little more substantial.

She could sense many things- some of them more hurtful than others.

She had been a road trip with ‘the girls’ and had been on a group chat with them- but it had been on her bridal shower when she had realised that their bond was as loose as could be tied.

It was a How Do You Know The Bride to break the ice question and one of the girls had said, “I don’t really know her, you know. She doesn’t really let anyone in.” It was very honest for a public gathering- Wine usually does that.

The other girl had said, “I know her through her boyfriend. He and I were good friends in University… And he always talked about her.” It was true. They had been good friends, she and him but never she and the bride.

And when her wedding launch was held, the disdain in the comments that went around was palpable even though she heard none of them.

“Why didn’t they just wait like the rest of us, until they can afford it? Why do they have to get married now?”

And even though it would be one meeting and there would be no ceaseless bulk-sent reminders- the silence of ‘the girls’ chat had been loud and clear. She could sense that a conversation was being had, but it was being had elsewhere. No excuses were written, just a,

Best Wishes!

When the wedding numbers were being cut, she remembered only the two girls she had gone to High School with, sitting through the queasy gathering, staying put till the end and giving what they could in spite of the staggering auctioning of grand sums.

She had felt the vibe of the crowd at the launch and there were not many Best Wishes!

Some had come to see whether things would work out- some were on their phones- supposedly picking criminals out of police cells on a Saturday night- asking how it had all turned out.

One girl, was annoyed that it was her, it just had to be her, floating around like a stainless princess- seen, picked, chosen and now committed to.

Only a few- very few were there to stand by their guy and make certain that everything that they had something to do about, would work out.

And then suddenly, she had not been able to breathe. She did not understand that she was having a panic attack and that sometimes, a panic attack came from breathing in toxic fumes from the environment.

It happened that not only could she sense a vibration, she absorbed them too. She inhaled them. Sometimes, if someone shouted on top of their voice, she shouted. Sometimes she said it through her words, she wrote – fiercely. Sometimes she left with the baby and her husband, a cesarean scar and a spinal headache in the middle of the night. Sometimes she threw glass. Sometimes she combusted into a stream of tears. Sometimes, she had a panic attack and could not breathe.

The nature of her friendships- she had been told- she was too honest to have many friends. Not everyone was looking for depth.

But she too understood why. Someone had offered herself to be a friend and she had pushed her away. The offer had been from a kind of girl she had thought she would be -pristine. A girl who had jumped every hurdle she had not managed to jump. And so she created a gap and mounted a criticism of her- having once had the same aspirations.

So she too knew, that friendships are a reflection of who we are and who we let in, is a reflection of what we think of ourselves.

Friendships are sometimes, the people we can surround ourselves with, without judgement.

In High School, she had been called Miss goody goody by two girls who had labelled themselves the rebellious ones. She was also called The church girl and mummy’s girl. Phylum mummy’s girl it was. It was the creativity of young children with the help of Senior 3 Biology. She was called mean- mean to boys- in Primary school by the self proclaimed cool girl of the class.

She had tried to not be mean but she never let anyone off the hook when break time ended and the teachers came back from their meeting

All the names remained on the blackboard.

Noisemakers Idlers Loiterers

A schoolmate had once told her, “We hated you! You were that prefect.” It had been 15 years since primary school but she could sense that the ‘hate’ in that statement was a little too vivid.

She had tried to blend in, to be a little less stern, a little less serious, a little more the same as others as she grew older. But she had still not been the kind of girl to have many friends.

Quote by Allan Watts.

Photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash

Category: Story

Beauty unseen

Sensitive.