Bodacious Boomer

As everybody probably knows by now I am in an ongoing battle with my body. We’ve had a love/hate thing going on for about as long as I can remember. I had long curls when I was little. Looking back at the photos they looked pretty. However they got tangled in the blink of an eye. I was tender-headed and mom was heavy handed with the brush. (That was a bad combination.) By the time I got to high school, long, straight hair was the fashion-curls were out. So I attempted to let my hair grow and make it straight. I’d had better luck trying to make Liberace or Elton John straight. I’d sleep all night with my hair rolled around orange juice cans. (How I ever slept I do not know.) I’d take it down in the morning and it’d look pretty good until I went outside. Then the humidity would get to it and by the time I got to school my hair had gotten bigger and bigger until I looked like an Aborigine or Roseanne Roseanna Danna from Saturday Night Live, take your pick.

By my senior year, I’d had enough. I had it cut really, really short. Back then I could pull it off (Now, I ‘d look like the bulb end of a green onion with the little roots on top). I fought my curl for another 15 years. About the time I gave in to it, curly hair came back into acceptance. Now I love it. No perms or curling irons for me-just wash and wear. Of course these days if a curly girl wants straight hair she just uses a Chi iron and voila!-straight hair. Our daughter Amanda got a Chi iron as a gift. I had her straighten my hair one night. I walked into our bedroom and Doug said  “What the Hell happened to your hair? Is that permanent?”(I guess that tells you how it looked.) I hopped in the shower and when I got out my curls were back.

Thinking back now it seems unbelievable that we wore pantie girdles and stockings to school.  The pantie girdle was just to hold up your stockings since no one back then really had anything that needed to be held in. I don’t know what possessed us to wear all that-especially in Houston, the second most humid place on the earth next to the Brazilian rain forest. I had asked my mom about a garter belt but was rebuffed. “Nice girls don’t wear those, Michele.” I was told. Once an adult, I’ve never thought to ask a woman my age from another country if they also wore all that when they were in high school. It would be interesting to know.

When I arrived in Austin to start UT in the fall of ’69 I had all new clothes. I had “outfits.” All my undies-the bras, panties and slips also matched. I’m not even sure why it was so important to me. (I was still a virgin. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see them.) My dad urged me to take a self-defense course. I took karate and enjoyed it a lot. I became so flexible I could stand with my heels touching the wall and Jack, the instructor, could lift one leg completely over my head and touch my toes to the wall behind me. I was in great shape. I didn’t wear a pantie girdle ever and a bra maybe 50% of the time. (The whole no bra thing was a BIG mistake I later discovered.)

Until my early 30′s everything on my body pretty much stayed where it needed to without help from the Army Corps of Engineers. Then after the two kids and my crazy schedule, which I thought gave me permission to eat junk, everything was on the move. If you look at chart of my fitness over the years it looks like an EKG. If I have a dressy event to go to I will wear control top panty hose. However, that’s as far as it goes.

Perhaps I would’ve been more concerned about looking just so if I had to wear one of those long, slinky sequined gowns you see in Hollywood. (I bet those women are cranky most of the time because they’re hungry.) I recently read that Oprah stated that she wears a  Spanx bodyshaper everyday. Good for her if that’s what she wants. That’s just not for me. I’ve seen that they even now have Spanx for your arms. Can you believe that? Although my mom has never weighed more than 120 lbs. in her life, even her triceps are flappyish now. It’s gonna happen eventually no matter what you do.

One of the perks of getting older is that you become more comfortable with who you are. Most of us can’t wear the clothes we wore in high school. I think that’s OK. (If you can, I applaud you.) I’m not advocating everyone become Jabba the Hut, laying on the couch and eating a bag of Doritos the size of a bean bag chair. I say just do what you can, make reasonable choices and enjoy your life. I’m back at the gym just trying to get as healthy as I can without being a zealot. (I can’t maintain zealot for the long run.)

As far as the Spanx go, thankx but no Spanx for me. At least not right now. (However I reserve the right to change my mind as my trip gets closer.)