What If My Body Doesn't Go Back?

I'm thinking a lot these days about what life will be like next week, next month, this summer, next year.  What if things don't go back to the way they were? None of us knows the future which is why trying to live there makes us anxious.  

I used to be anxious about my body all the time. What if I eat this or don't exercise or don't follow the latest supposed health promise (which really just meant a smaller body)? What if my body doesn't go back to the way it was before I was pregnant? 

After pregnancy, nobody tells you that your body doesn't just "bounce" back. We're flooded with celebrity images showcasing their miraculous comeback after birth while the rest of us are in our leggings and spit-up filled clothes wondering what's "wrong" with me and my body?  

After our 6th baby, my body isn't the same (no surprise there) and people at my house are noticing. I’m sitting with my five-year-old reading books at the end of the day and he quietly reaches over to pat my stomach. He asks me “mommy when is your tummy going to go back in?”

You may expect that I'm going to tell you how I laughed this off and went right to the next book. Not quite. While I'm not tempted to diet anymore and don’t feel shame about my body, I'm a human living in a diet culture world and I notice when my body is different (aka bigger). I try to be honest with our kids so I told him the truth. "I don't really know if it will ever go back in.“

Insert five-year-old looking appalled. Noticing his discomfort, I ask “is that a problem?“

He says “yeah, that would be a problem.“

I ask him who it would be a problem for. Would it be just a problem for him?

He really thought about this and said, “yeah, I guess.”

I said, “ well we don’t have complete control over our bodies and how they look especially after a belly stretches to grow a baby. And besides, wouldn’t that be weird if everyone had the same body?"

He thought, and said yeah, “that would really weird! It’s actually good you don't have to change your belly.”

I remind him that he doesn’t need his belly or body to look a certain way either.

“Yeah, I know.”  

I pray that our kids really do know this.  While there's a lot we don't know about the state of the world today. We know that we don't have to torture ourselves to look a certain way in order to be loved or accepted by other people, especially ourselves.  

What if things don't go back the way they were? What if my body doesn't go back to what it used to look like? 

I don't have the answers. None of us have the answers. I just know that the only way to find peace in general is to accept the way things are, accept how my body looks and to live in the present.