The pencil test

Yesterday

I put a pencil under my breasts

and when it didn’t fall and roll away

I cried

For in the teen magazine it said that meant my boobs weren’t perky enough

 

Today

I casually stick a pencil in my hair to keep my bun in place

and examine my breasts in the mirror

They sag a bit

But

they are not diseased

and they’ve been the receptacles of milk and love

they’ve fed my children

 

Yesterday

My legs

those skinny legs

those hairy legs

so disproportionate to the rest of me

how I hated them!

 

Today

those same legs have carried me

through life

through marathons

on hills and plains

through scary by lanes

I love them

 

Yesterday

my small hands

those stubby fingers

those grubby nails

those myriad lines on my palms

were not artistic enough

 

Today

they remind me

of my mother’s hands

mottled and aged

roughened with work

I see her in them

and find them beautiful

 

Yesterday

My nose was too big

my forehead too broad

my cheeks too chubby

my skin too brown

 

Today

I have lines

and wrinkles (and grey hair too)

a testimony to my past

to laughter and tears

a life well lived

 

Yesterday

I jumped

I ran

I swam

to get

washboard abs

 

Today

I have a rounded belly

a network of stretch marks

all over it

for it housed my babies

and carried them safely

how can I complain?

 

Yesterday

that pencil that didn’t roll away

told me

that I would never be as beautiful

as the girls in the magazines

 

Today

I realise

No one is.