(wo)man in the mirror

some old school michael jackson:
i'm lookin' at the man in the mirror
i'm askin' him to change his ways
no question could have been any clearer
if you wanna make the world a better place
well take a look at yourself and then make that....change

ok. now that i am safely back on land and the bahama birthday beach bash is a sunburnt memory, i have a lot of thinking to do.

the trip was fine. fine. yeah. i'm not a cruise girl, it turns out. don't get me wrong, i was basking in the glorious warm sun, tromping around in skirts and tank tops, i got to kayak on my birthday in crystal blue water. i read magazines and books for hours. BUT. i also got a bit ugly. i think it was overexposure to toxic substances: women in bikinis and fashion mags.

i was having a good enough time, i thought. i was fretting and complaining about my hair being a strange sticky gross texture (chorinated water in the cruise shower). i was distracted by the growing zit on my chin. and i felt a bit like a pitabread-colored flotation device next to all those bikini clad people. i ODd on the magazines and the body-comparisons. i started to spiral into self-hate, which i verbalized ad nauseum to T until she gently but firmly gave me the smack down on my birthday night at the bar. she informed me that she would henceforth ignore me and direct her attention elsewhere whenever i started criticizing myself.

interesting self-filter alert: everywhere SHE looked, she saw campily dressed soccer moms, 80s hair cuts, and well-rounded figures that essentially define American tourists on a cruise. i could scan the same poolside deck and see only the european and south american glamazons and their disturbingly unattractive mates.

what was going on here?

the weirdest part was, when i looked at pictures from the trip i was genearlly pleasantly surprised by how i was NOT disgusted, but maybe even a little bit pleased, with how i looked generally. like a disarming acceptance of curves and a pleasure at the places i could see the yoga and running beginning to pay off in a way that one can only see in pictures. but whenever i was looking at my actual self in the mirror, or on the off photo that caught my squish just so, i was filled with seething self-loathing. that i felt open to share with T. i would have said them to myself, or even to myself outloud, had she not been there.

anyway. after the much-deserved smack down, i had trouble dragging myself out of dispondency. i was stunned. i was embarrassed and humbled and i felt slimy and very very displeased with my behavior and of the sticky black sludge of selfhate to which i had been subjecting T all weekend. i started to withdraw into my brain and work out a plan. a plan. yes. that's all i need. i need to get off this dumb boat and go back to my real life and....try harder?

is that the answer? try harder to look better? try harder to love myself? try harder to keep the toxicity far far away?

ah-ha, but that's the thing isn't it? it's gotta be a change of heart. it's gotta be the BELIEVE stuff, the Jesus stuff. i'm sure its no coincidence that i have not made much room for Jesus or for calm or prayer or quiet lately. i had things to do. to get ready for the trip. an agenda of nothing-but-trash reading on the vacation. a 'break from reality'. right.

well, i wouldn't want anyone to conclude that this trip was a bust. it wasn't. it was, on the whole, really fun and much-needed, sunshine wise. T and i get along really well overall i think. 31 on the beach is not a terrible way to start a new year.

and as for the Reboot 2009? i made some goals and action items. more about that some other time. thanks for your prayers. i was only miserably sea sick for one night, and then managed to procure those magic behind-the-ear patches which prevented any further nights curled up in the fetal position on my tiny cabin bed, stomach and head sloshing around, wondering whether "eaten by sharks" would be a more pleasant way to spend the evening. and the "i'm allergic to vacation" sun poisoning will go away in a couple of days.

vacations are lovely, but i'm so very happy to sleep in my own bed tonight.