Accepting my decisions and embracing reality.
I've never really been against plastic surgery. I worked many years at a country club where regularly the women would have facelifts and I was fascinated by them. In my 20s, I always swore that if I ever had kids I would get everything "fixed" no matter the cost because there was no way that I was going to look old.
As I aged, I looked over my body and it's battle scars - emotional and physical. We've been through so much together. My body took a beating dancing in college, but dang it, we did it. Then I abused it regularly with partying in my 20s. It still managed to come through. It carried two children and (obviously) birthed them. It wore a wedding dress beautifully. I started becoming attached to it, just the way that it is.
Just as I was fully accepting my body, I was told that I'd have to remove pieces of it. Nothing makes you love your body more than when someone tells you that you have to change it. I went into denial. Even as I scheduled my surgery and went through all of the motions, in the back of my mind I kept thinking that there is no way I am going to cut off parts of my body, no way. I'm not going to lie, I even thought that as I was being wheeled into the operating room. Thank goodness they gave me something for the anxiety because I probably would have jumped off the operating table and said "just kidding!" and ran out of there.
I was still in disbelief when I woke up in recovery. I remember looking down and thinking, "did I actually do this?" It wasn't until I was moving around much better and further into recovery that I accepted that I did actually do this.
Now I hear women talk about getting plastic surgery for numerous reasons (none of them health reasons) and I think that they are crazy. I want them to realize that these "imperfections" are their life. They are battle scars, memories, unique to themselves. I would love to have my stretch marks as they remind me of my amazing little boys. Or my floppy breasts because they remind me of successfully nursing Collin. Or even my pierced belly button which reminds me of my crazy college days. Bad decisions, good decisions, they were all my decisions, all me.
Obviously it's every women's decision, every women's individual choice. My suggestion is don't change. You lived those scars. You earned them. Be proud of your past and what you've been able to accomplish.
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