If you are too young to remember that commercial, please stop reading this post. What are you doing reading a Mommy Blog anyway? You should be sexting or playing beer pong or something. Act your age, for crying outloud.
The answer to the question who wears short shorts is definitely.not.me. As soon as cellulite and stretch marks become fashionable, I'm in. Until then, some stories are better left untold.
I had a moment of weakness while trying on shorts today. I had to have that internal battle between the part of myself who does not want to sweat like a dog in a Chinese restaurant and the part of myself who actually cares what I look like wearing shorts.
Is physical insecurity just part of being a woman?
Some insecurity always haunts me like the Ghost of Young & Stupid Past, the Ghost of What Not To Wear Present and the Ghost of Getting Older Future.
When I was in eighth grade, some idiotic punk (nah, I'm not bitter) stood up in class and said, "Hey, everybody! How do you babysit Amanda?... Lick her lips and stick her to the wall!"
[Insert emotionally scarring laughter here.]
He sure opened up a can of whoop-Amanda because making fun of my lips became more fashionable than Madonna's belly button. (When I am talking about 1987, I feel that I should adjust my metaphors and similes accordingly.)
Guess what happened just a few short years later? Julia Roberts became a Pretty Woman and suddenly lips that take up one-third of your face were not only acceptable but considered attractive. Ka-blam!
But the insecurity about the size of my lips has never disappeared. And through the years, a long list of new insecurities have been added.
While trying on those shorts today, and turning from side to side in the full-length mirror trying to find the angle that made me look ten pounds thinner, I thought, 'Dang! I wish I looked like I did five years ago.'
But guess what. I didn't wear shorts then, either.
When you're thirty-five, you want to look twenty-five. And when you're forty-five, you want to look thirty-five. Are you pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?
I realized that a woman will never be as young or look as good as she does right now.
So enjoy today! Wear that bikini. Dig out that little black dress from the back of the closet. Do not untag yourself from that Facebook photo. And even buy the shorts.
Because you deserve it, and well... today is as good as it gets.
I'll leave you with that inspiring yet depressing thought. Not sure if you feel better or worse now, huh?
