Girl Body Pride is coming up on a birthday. To celebrate, we are taking a moment to showcase our favorite submissions from guest writers and contributions from our regular team. Do you have a favorite you’d like to see here? Send me an email at girlbodypride@gmail.com.
Julia Cowan Roberts originally published My Body Propels Me (Still) on Aiming Low Miss Unlimited and shared the piece with Girl Body Pride on October 24, 2012.
Throughout my childhood (in cold Minnesota weather, no less) I was an active kid. I lived across the street from a huge park and it was back in the day when we would leave the house for the day and only come back for food. There was a public recreation center, a playground and a wading pool just yards from my front door. I played softball and did gymnastics.
It was idyllic.
When I was in high school, I was in flag corps and on an amateur swim team as well as my high school swim team. In fact, with the exception of my senior year, I was active through high school in a number of different activities. I think being so active made me focus on what my body was capable of instead of what I looked liked. I was not petite; I was curvy. I had hips and boobs. In my 20s I even ran a few marathons and while they were slow, they were all completed.
My body has done some cool stuff.
I have to say, I was never self conscious of my body’s size. Perhaps I never hated my body because I come from a long line of strong Nordic women who I picture catching their own dinner with thread and a sewing needle in the middle of a Scandinavian lake. Or maybe because I was raised by a feminist who loved her own body and never had any self hate talk for me to pick up on. My body propelled me through water, allowed me to march, run and so I’ve always been proud of how my body treated me.
While my body isn’t active in sports, or all that thin these days, I am still proud that my body propels me. It propels me while I care for my kids with special needs, experience life with my husband and family, follow through on hobbies I enjoy, grow and sustain friendships, and work at a job I love.
I am absolutely certain being active when I was young aided me in my current love for the large, curvy, squishy body I have now.
It propels me.
Originally posted on Aiming Low in their Miss Unlimited Channel in November 2011 by Julia Roberts, who is a writer for Aiming Low and a regular contributor here at Girl Body Pride.
