Amazing

So, I've got a few self esteem problems that will raise their ugly heads from time to time. For the most part, I feel like I've learned some decent coping mechanisms for the majority of them, and while I still fall victim to them regularly, the results aren't necessarily as devastating as they used to be.

One issue has come back a few times recently: my body. Now, my coping mechanism for this problem came to me a few years ago, and it's a little twisted, but it works. I remind myself of the following:

1. This is the body type God gave me. Big boobs, sure, but that means your stuck with the big hips and big butt. I'll never be a Skinny Minnie, so get over it.

2. This is the body I did my best to destroy when I was younger. Consequences are what they are, and I'm lucky I've experienced so very few.

3. My whole life, meds and depression have messed with my body. Accept it, move on.

4. I don't have time to focus on this. I have a life. I'll do what I can, but I won't obsess on this when I have so much else on my plate.

And that usually does it. At worst, in the end, I accept that I'm still cute or smart and just do my best to let it go.

So, you can imagine the type of body image I really have deep down. I tend to look at say...my stomach...and I see stretch marks and fat. I look at my face and see chubby cheeks and - with the sleep problems I've had the last couple of weeks - raccoon eyes. They dominate my face. They're all I see.

And then, my husband - this man that has known me since I was 13 years old - is sitting beside me tonight, and in complete sincerity with a note of awe in his voice, he says:

"God, you're so beautiful."

And I'm 15 again, nervously sitting beside him in a gazeebo in a little park near school. It's our lunch break, and we've just finished playing each other our favorite songs on my walkman, and he kisses me for the first time.

And I'm the most beautiful woman in the world.