Body Bored...

Dear Women,
I’m bored of it, I’m bored when it comes out of my mouth, your mouth, the mouth of every woman over the age of twelve, every magazine, every advertisement, every Saturday night wardrobe crisis, every single time I try something on in an ill lit fitting room, tired of it and I’m starting the revolution, as soon as I put down my cake, cake as you will learn is an important part of the uprising.

Let's try something new this year, and I don’t mean a recipe by Monsieur Olivier, although enjoying food, instead of beating yourself to within an inch of your life with a bag of Maltesers would be a good start. Lets bring back thank you, lets bring back grace, confidence, and dare I say it? Acceptance. Now don’t panic, we will not be cleansing any aura’s or spring cleaning the old chakra, this is simply a rant, not a new subject even, but I was wondering at what point it happens? I was made to wonder by the untainted, the one who knows her own mind, the one who can’t read and does not like princesses… I said to her the other day, in all of her four year old glory, “You’re gorgeous”, she responded,” I know”. Now I’m not even sure if you can know what it even means at that age to be gorgeous, it would seem it’s not about knowing, it’s about feeling, thus words mean nothing, although before I shoot myself in the foot, please keep reading…

I thought it was fantastic that she took it as a given, a simple fact if you like and I was jealous, as well as in awe of her confidence, her belief, her accepting a compliment graciously and swiftly before moving the conversation onto more important matters, like whether she should sing Valerie or Yellow Submarine? And did I, in fact, like fruit pot? It struck a chord within me and later as I sat and thought about our day, I wondered why little girls don’t grow into big girls, who believe in their own beauty and instead grow into women quick to respond to “you look good” with “if only I could lose the muffin top …”

I personally, love to blame the media, I love to blame everyone actually, I’m not one for accepting responsibility. I’ll point the finger, grab my flaming torch and march up to the head offices at glossy magazine mountain. I’d bet money that underneath the sharp bob, a pair of rusty bolts are securing the pearls, draping beautifully on the cashmere twin set… The very magazines you are reading, are paying for, are, by the way, filled to the fabulous brim with articles on loving yourself, but just in case you don’t, the back twenty pages are a reliable source, should you need, bigger tits, a smaller nose, fat sucked out, lips put in, forehead paralysed, (my personal favourite), injecting, yes injecting! Poison, POISON, like New York, New York, so good I typed it twice, into your face so that you never smile again, now that’s beauty!

We live in a world which has invented a way to stop you smiling, a world which charges you £350 every six months for the privilege of not smiling, brings a tear to the botoxed eye, doesn’t it? Not that you’d know, you probably can’t feel it, your lids are paralysed, so you can’t even blink those bad boys back, damn it, now my mascara is running… I am as guilty as the rest, I buy the magazines, I wonder why at the age of 33 I’m not as skinny as the 14 year old modelling the overpriced tapered jeans I am coveting? I am aware I am being duped, I am like a bluebottle head-butting a window, somehow unable to stop, so I am asking you, me, all of us to open the window, help out the bluebottle, disgusting metaphor I know, but if you let it out, you won’t end up with maggots...

I am not telling you anything you don’t know, what I am doing is asking you to start saying thank you, that’s all ladies, the next time someone tells you look good, gorgeous even, try saying thank you and if you’re feeling really brave, you might even want to try saying, I know...

Yours sincerely,