A Round Life

Both of my grandmothers—and I hope they’d forgive me for saying this—were on the rotund size. Maybe it was the fact that they both liked to cook. Homemade noodles on one side, meals that began with a pasta course and moved on to a meat course on the other. It was something that I grew up with, this notion that as you age, you become rounder, softer, more comfortable for grandchildren who want to hug and climb all over you.

I wasn’t keen on gaining a pillowy body, though, after having children. I had both of my kids when I was in my twenties and still owned an actual bikini. After my daughter was born, I worked to lose my baby weight. I remember fitting into my loosest pants and skirts after three months, and being very happy with myself about that. And though I did get back to my pre-pregnancy weight in terms of numbers on the scale, my body was irrevocably changed. I’d never had the perfect stomach, and there were definitely a few marks now, some extra “pillow” that I couldn’t seem to get rid of.

Whatever. Who needed a bikini? I stuck it in a bag in my closet, and two years later had my son. My son, who was—even as a baby—so much like he is today at thirteen. Strong and sprawling and hell-bent on chaos. This is a kid who could not keep a bed neat throughout the night if he were paid ten grand in iTunes cards for the deed. Sheets, blankets, the comforter everywhere but where it’s supposed to be. He arrived in this world, healthy and pink and with a voice that said “Oh, yeah, I’m a boy,” and my stomach was most definitely not where it was supposed to be after that—a casualty of his nine-month night. Stretch marks. Skin that just sort of said, “Heh. Good luck with that.”

After lots of walking and continuing to eat a healthy diet, I was once more my pre-pregnancy weight, but this was—even after plenty more exercise including situps and aerobics—not ever going to be a bikini body again. My bikini made it to the charity pile this time around. It wasn’t that I’d given up. I hadn’t. (Hey, if the bod suddenly decided to cooperate, sculpt itself into something bikini-friendly, I’d buy something that wasn’t a decade out of fashion.) But I’d accepted that post-baby bodies were simply different from pre-baby bodies for most mortal women. They just were. So were pre-baby, pre-nursing breasts. It happened. Okay. I had two healthy babies, turned children, and now have two healthy teenagers to show for it. And someday those teenagers will be adults, and someday those adults will—if I have anything to say about it—have babies. And someday the children of my children will eat my homemade noodles and settle into my lap, which will hopefully not be too different than it is today, and be glad for my round, soft parts, and for the pillowy comfort of a round life, and for climbing into it through me, and for hugging, and for their parents. And I’ll buy them teeny bikinis and tell them that some things never change and that some things do.

Both are perfectly normal.

 

Therese Walsh’s is the author of the novel, . She’s currently hard at work on her second novel—another story about self-discovery, acceptance and magical journeys—at her home in upstate New York. Therese is the co-founder of Writer Unboxed, a blog for writers about the craft and business of genre fiction. Before turning to fiction, she was a researcher and writer for Prevention magazine, and then a freelance writer. She’s had hundreds of articles on nutrition and fitness published in consumer magazines and online.