Thoughts From a Beach

We recently stayed in Ocean City, New Jersey for a week- our first family vacation since we had our first child nearly 3.5 years ago!  Much overdue!  It was wonderful....

I loved sitting on the beach with my kids totally content just playing with one or two toys in the sand quietly for hours at a time.  My husband was also quiet.  The sound of the waves were serene and people-watching was so....intriguing!  I found myself just watching in awe of the awesome and less-than-awesome style choices I noticed.  I loved taking notice of the perfect bodies and, even better, the less than perfect bodies that many men and women wore with confidence!  The entire beach experience was actually quiet cathartic for me.

As I have said before, after having my babies (which I am so thankful for), my body is not the same as it once was.  Certain parts of my body that once were tanned will probably never see the light of day again!  Or so I thought.....I watched many post-baby bellies in bikinis and while some of them really were not appropriate for the suits they were in, some where refreshingly imperfect and inspiring and beautiful!  Probably not the bellies that a 16 year old girl could appreciate but, as a mother, I actually found it quiet beautiful.

I think maybe next summer I will be ready to bare my post-pregnancy stomach and do it with some sense of pride and accomplishment.  Sure, it's not perfect and will never be the stomach someone aspires to have, but, I earned this!

I love this quote from Jennifer Lopez:

"It's important for all types of women to know that you don't have to fit a prototype of what one person thinks is beautiful in order to be beautiful or feel beautiful.... People think, Sexy, big breasts, curvy body, no cellulite. It's not that. Take the girl at the beach with the cellulite legs, wearing her bathing suit the way she likes it, walking with a certain air, comfortable with herself. That woman is sexy. Then you see the perfect girl who's really thin, tugging at her bathing suit, wondering how her hair looks. That's not sexy."

JENNIFER LOPEZ, Readers Digest, Aug. 2003

And this one, too...which I've only come to appreciate as I have transformed through motherhood and age...

"The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw."

HAVELOCK ELLIS, Impressions and Comments

I hope that you all can relate to this and if not, that you will save it in a corner of your mind where you can come back to it later.  I am pretty certain that everyone needs to hear these types of affirmations from time-to-time.  

Be well and be confident and then, you will be beautiful!  :)