Getting What You Want

I've been thinking a lot about how my postpartum body differs from my pre-baby body as of late.
Specifically the fact that my post baby body weighs a great deal less than my body did before.
Now, i am not here to fake complain about the weight loss and compare myself to mothers whose bodies react more typically to pregnancy and breastfeeding, which is to hold on more readily to their weight. I am here to discuss how this situation i am in is affecting my recovery from fifteen years of disordered eating.
And it brought me to the following realization:
In the past. I have liked my body the most, when it looked the least like my mental image of myself.
Take a minute and think about that.
Do you look at pictures of yourself on fb or ig and un-tag yourself from them if they are unflattering?
Do you use umpteen filters on any selfies you take?
Do you look at your female friends and relatives and compare yourself to them? Or worse, do you convince yourself that you cannot be as happy as they are because your body does not look like theirs?
I have done all of the above, and i was doing it long before my behavior became what would be defined as textbook ED.
I am currently twenty lbs less than i was two years ago before getting pregnant with my son.
Back then in 2014, i was convinced I would be happier if i was the weight i am now. I associated this lower weight with success, stability, control over myself and therefore control over what other people thought of me. I aligned this concept of my lighter self with a better version, a more fulfilled and balanced person who did not obsess about food. I was certain that if i could just get out of my cycle of binging and restricting and putging, i would magically be not just lighter in my worries and cares but lighter physically as well. One did not come with the other.
When i thought i was getting my shit together, all it tookwas a badly lit photo that highlighted my poochy belly or a moment in the mirror where i realized my cheeks made my head look "too wide". And i would go spiralling into a sea of self loathing, where i ate because it didn't matter what i did, i was never going to look in the mirror and see Giselle or Beyonce. I was only ever going to see me.

Here i am. I look in the mirror and i see what I thought i wanted so badly two years ago. And you know what?
It's still me looking put from the mirror.
I lost the weight, and i still have wide cheeks and a belly roll, they're just a bit smaller. I didn't magically grow a luscious booty or clearer skin. My distribution of fat is exactly the same, just slightly less than.

My disordered brain knows that most of my weight loss is due to breastfeeding, and that when my baby weans, not only will some (if not all) the weight come back, but so will all the hormones that have kept most of my cravings in suspended animation for the past year and a half.
This state my body is in is temporary.

Epiphany:
The state of your body and its shape is always temporary.
We are constantly fighting to be the healthiest version of ourselves.
For me, that may mean i gain those twent pounds back.
My job is not to fight it.
My job is to continue to listen to my body when it tells me what and how i should eat and move and rest it.
My job is not to get on the scale every Tuesday, a bad habit i picked up while pregnant. My job is to be proud of the belly that grew my baby and which continues to care for me by housing my organs and yes, some extra fat that is there for me to stay warm and fed.
I could lose another twenty pounds. I did it before, and i know what happens.
I am cold and cranky all the time.
I stop menstruating.
I don't sleep properly, my skin turns to garbage, and i get lightheaded easily.
I will never grow a defined jawline no matter how little i weigh. I will always have big cheeks.
I will never have six pack abs. That's just not what my body is designed to look like.

I am not happier or more in control at this weight than i was twenty pounds heavier.
I am just as insecure, just as emotional, and just as neurotic.
I am not more successful or magically jetsetting into the next phase of my career.

You know what else?
I still enjoy sunsets.
My mouth still loves the bittersweet residue dark chocolate leaves behind.
My legs are strong, and i love walking by the ocean feeling my wide cheeks getting rosy from the salt wind.
My arms are so good at picking up my son and holding onto him as he wriggles like hell.
My lips are fantastic as kissing his perfect round cheeks that are Just. Like. Mine.
My body
Your body
They don't magically get better at doing their jobs when they weigh less or more.
In the same way that a car is still going to get you somewhere no matter what shape it is or what color.
As long as its parts still work it doesn't matter what it looks like. It's still a great car!

So look in the mirror.
Take the unfiltered selfie.
Buy the dress.
Eat the cake.
Kiss the human.
And treasure everything about your glorious body as it is, in this moment, that it allows you to experience all of this whether it is twenty pounds (or thirty! Or forty!) more or less than it is now.
Stop looking for someone else to look back at you. You're perfect, bloody beautiful, just as you are.