The Best Kept Secret Blog - Going South
I attended a bridal shower once where, after a few rounds of champagne cocktails, the hostess suggested we go around the room and identify the body part we were most proud of.
While the game was suggested in the name of positive affirmation and building self-esteem, I suspect her real agenda was to engineer a platform on which to brag about her not insignificant bosom.
As my turn drew closer, I panicked. Apart from liking my hair immediately after spending $200 for a cut, colour and blow-dry, nothing readily leapt to mind. I eventually mumbled something about my hands - politically correct enough to reassure the group I didn’t have a body-image disorder yet sufficiently dull to get them to move on in hopes of mining spicier declarations from more tipsy participants.
Over the years, that evening occasionally came to mind. Each time I’d do a mental check to see if things had changed and one day it did – the day I decided I liked my butt.
This revelation was precipitated by several events coming together at once.
First, it was mid-January and I was still under the misguided illusion that I’d be able to make my New Year’s resolutions come true. I was hitting the gym every day and feeling the burn.
Around the same time, the tabloid media became enthralled with J. Lo and her rear. Big butt girls were “in” - a very good omen for me.
Finally, there was the Saturday afternoon I spent shopping for jeans. A saleswoman referred to my build as curvy and voluptuous. Yes, I understand she was on commission and I’m not sure it counts when you’re only voluptuous from the waist down but it just sounded so darn good!
I took all of these things as a sign and so it was, that for a short while, I came to like my butt. Finally, I had something to be proud of.
Eventually however, all good things must come to an end (pardon the pun) and as I move further into my middle years, I began to suspect the glory days of my rump were over.
My first inkling came while walking up a flight of stairs in front of my children. I heard the little one proclaim, “Mommy’s butt is huge!” “Yeah,” replied her sister, “it kind of looks like a potato.”
Then there was the dress – the clingy, black jersey number I was considering for a wedding we were invited to. I wasn’t quite sure about the fit so I stepped out of the change room and asked the sales girl for her opinion.
A buxom woman herself who’s nametag read Chantal, she didn’t give me the standard retail rhetoric I was expecting when I asked if the dress made my butt look fat. Instead of “I think it really suits you” I got “Why don’t you go up a size and try it with some shape wear? We have a liberal return policy if that doesn’t do the trick.”
The final blow came when I recounted the story to my husband and turned to him for reassurance. Instead of his pat response, “Honey, you look great”, he offered up some vague platitude about how we’re all changing at this stage in the game. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
I had to see what was going on. I got undressed, stepped in front of the mirror and had a long, hard look.
What I saw reminded me a winter coat sagging and straining on a cheap, plastic hanger. From jowls to ankles, everything that wobbled or jiggled seemed to be heading south faster than a pair of Canadian “snowbirds” on their way to a Florida vacation.
My friends offered advice. “Stairs and squats,” C. told me. “Do them until you can’t walk.”
Well, that’s fine for her to say – C. being a member of that elite breed of housewives who fill their day shopping, lunching and making frequent forays to the gym where they work out with muscled, 20 year-old personal trainers named Tad and Robbie. I, on the other hand, have no Tad or Robbie in my life – just a 15 year old treadmill that no longer gets up past 1 km per hour.
R. suggested going online and researching ways to fix a sagging butt. I ran head-on into before and after shots of women who had undergone a butt lift. While the results were amazing, I had to wonder about the wisdom of removing six to ten pounds of fat from one’s bottom. I already found sitting in the bleachers at the kid’s skating practice uncomfortable enough. And then there was the cost. How could I get my husband to agree to that when I had a hard enough time convincing him to ante up for new curtains.
Currently I’m working on a hybrid solution involving part exercise, part judicious use of shape wear and part acceptance. I know I’ll never have the derriere of a 20 year-old again (though come to think of it, when I was 20 my tush probably looked more like that of a 40 year-old woman).
The trick, I believe, is staying healthy and trying to find a new part of me to love and be proud of. Currently I’m leaning towards my penchant for a good bottle of Merlot.
