GESENHUES: She let herself go

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May 26, 2009

By AMY GESENHUES The News and Tribune Tue May 26, 2009, 08:48 PM EDT

I once heard a man comment that his ex-wife had, “ ... let herself go.” Hmmmm ... I thought, I wonder where she we went. She could have gone to the grocery, list in hand, picking up all the foods that she was going to spend the week going to her kitchen to cook

Maybe she had gone to her 4-year-old’s pediatrician’s office to a prescription of antibiotics for the ear infection that kept her daughter (and her) awake all night.

She may have gone to school, to work, to daycare, to the vet, to Target, and to the million and one other places where women spend their days completing the endless tasks that go along with being a mom.

If she had let herself go, then she must not have been going to the gym, the salon, the nail place, or anywhere else that would offer the slightest bit of pampering for her own needs. What we often fail to see during the honeymoon stages of being a mom is that we’ve signed up to let ourselves go. It’s the nature of being so consumed with someone else that we forget to take care of ourselves.

I remember when my daughter was first born, I felt more comfortable taking her with me everywhere, carrying her around on my hip as if she were a badge of evidence to explain why I had gained so much weight. “Yes, my jeans are three sizes bigger, but look what I created,” was my thought process.

Women complaining about weight issues are about as fun to listen to as tax lawyers talking about their work. I tend to avoid writing about why I don’t love the way I look, but a song by the Statler Brothers came across my radio waves the other day and sparked an angry fuse in me.

The song was ‘Older Women Make Beautiful Lovers’ and the line that got me going was, “Everybody seems to love those younger women, from eighteen on up to twenty-five.”

If younger is eighteen to twenty-five, does that mean that a 26 makes for an older woman? Really? I get that it is just a song from a thousand years ago and that they are just lyrics written to rhyme with the next line; but really, give me a more believable reference than eighteen to twenty-five when referring to older women.

I realize that I’m a thirty-something-mid-something-mother of two-two under the age of six-who works full-time. My own frustration with this song is more about my frustration with myself and my lack of doing what I need to do to keep from looking like an, “older woman.” (Thank you therapy. I can name that misdirected emotional tune in three notes.)

But retail marketers and car insurance companies both agree with me when I vehemently object that anyone past 25 is hardly old. She most likely hasn’t even had to dye her roots yet. She hasn’t even started to let herself go.

We’re not all like this. I know many moms who have kept their health and appearance a priority even while changing diapers, loading dishwashers, and planning birthdays. They wake while everyone else sleeps to sneak in a four-mile jog or spend their lunch doing yoga. They follow Oprah’s advice instead of just watching her.

I wish I were one of these moms. There have been times when I took drastic measures and paid more attention to my waistline (thigh line?), waking at 4:45 a.m. to attend fitness boot camp. But, it wasn’t long after boot camp was over that I was back to my old ways. My relationship with my body is reminiscent of a couple that has been together for too long and takes each other for granted.

Every now and again I’ll go out of my way and sign-up for a fitness class or spend an afternoon getting my nails done, but for the most part I live in constant fear that that Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are going to ambush me at Target, “We can’t let you buy another $6.98 t-shirt from here. All you have is a closet full of Target T-shirts. You dress like a sixteen-year old boy,” they would scream in their dueling high-pitched voices. (for those of you not addicted to makeover shows, Stacy and Clinton are the hosts of TLC’s “What Not to Wear”).

I’d be horrified, but not enraged. I’ll take 16-year old boy over older woman any day!

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