List 10 things you unabashedly love about your body

1. my brain- my personality fits me perfectly!
2. my natural 34 DD boobs, and my flat stomach to go along with it.
3. my pretty brown peeps, and my black long lashes.
4. i’m short- while it may be harder to stay thin than a tall person, i feel very cute and feminine. i am not a big baheemith, and i love it.
5. my stubby thumbs- i used to be so self conscious about them, but now i’ve grown to love them. they are mine.
6. the muscle indentation down the sides of my thighs… not to mention my legs in heals = amazing!
7. the shape of my low back- i love how smooth it feels when my boyfriend rubs it.
8. my light, soft skin- i honestly think that people who are really tan just look plain dirty, and it kinda grosses me out. i can’t help it; i like classic things.
9. my posture- when it’s good, i feel good.
10. my core- (time to add my reoccurring topic of every entry i make: i was a gymnast.) I have really good balance and sense of my core. i still have those strong inner muscles, and i just love the way my body feels when i move it with my torso in control. maybe you’ll get me if you love ballet.

A couple of my 43Things friends have done this goal, and one challenged me to do it myself.

Overall, I can’t say I love a lot of things about my body. I grew up in Minnesota, where you’re not taught to toot your own horn. My body will be 45 near the end of October, and time is having its way. But when I do exercise (which isn’t often enough) it responds and feels good.

My 10 things, in no particular order:

1. Height—I’m just over 6 feet tall, which is just right, though my wife wishes I were a bit shorter. She doesn’t wish to be taller.

2. Weight—Other than the “freshman 15” (or 25) I put on in college eating in the dining hall, I’ve never had problems with weight as an adult. I was a bit husky as an early teen. Both my younger brothers have battled weight problems, so I’m thankful I got my mom’s skinny genes. I’m about 175 now.

3. Blood pressure—Low. I’ve gone in for routine physicals and had the nurse ask if I’m OK after she takes my BP. “Yeah, it’s normally that low,” I always say.

4. Nose—this is a love/hate thing. As a kid I got teased about having a big nose, which made me self conscious. But as an adult, I’ve come to see it as a strong feature.

5. Face—I like my face. It’s not the most beautiful one in the world. But I think it still turns a female head now and then (or maybe they’re just gawking at what a freak I am).

6. My, um, manhood—what man doesn’t love it? It works most of the time, and hasn’t fallen off from all the overuse and abuse. Homeopathic lycopodium has helped me in recent years avoid asking my doctor about Viagra.

7. Tongue—Those occasional times #6 doesn’t work, #7 hasn’t let her down.

8. Teeth—I’ve got a fairly nice smile thanks to braces as a kid (thanks, Mom & Dad). Unfortunately, I didn’t take great care of them in early adulthood, and I’ve got six gold crowns on my rear molars. One of those crowns fell off Saturday morning, and I had to drive an hour and a half to my mercury-free dentist to get it reglued.

(Can you tell this is getting difficult if I’m saying I unabashedly love my dental work?)

9. Eyes—They’re blue, and while my vision’s not perfect, I can pass a driving test without glasses. I have some prescription sunglasses that sharpen things up a bit, but don’t really need them.

10. Hands & Wrists—after 25 years in the news business, I haven’t suffered from any significant carpal tunnel syndrome like some colleagues. My fingers are straight and strong, despite years of cracking my knuckles. Now if I could just convince my wife to tie them to the bedposts ….

I saw Taylor commenting on this goal (Hey, Taylor! Where’s your list?) and felt like it was a good step on my “Love & Trust my Body Again” goal on my 40 before 40 list.

Been mulling it over in the shower since then. So here it is.

1. My breasts. I have always been a busty girl, which is odd because no one else in my family is. I’ve always attributed it to reading too much Playboy before I hit puberty. I just assumed I’d have big breasts like that. Ka-boom! They are my superpower! Especially in the right clothes and with the right bra.

2. Being tall. Not so tall that I feel unfeminine, but tall. And in heels – real tall which is also very cool.

3. Being strong. When I work at it and am in shape, I can easily do manual labor all day. Even out of shape, carrying a 30+ pound baby for hours? No problem. It’s the hardy peasant stock.

4. My figure. I watch What Not To Wear and they always talk about the silhouette one wants to create – an hourglass. I’ve got it. More curves than are fashionable now, but I would have been a goddess in the 50’s.

5. My waist. My sister always envies it. It’s just small – especially when compared to my hips and bust. It’s not where I gain weight so even when I was heavier, I still looked tiny waisted. And my abs have really bounced back from the giant baby size – which I’m really glad about.

6. Orgasms – easily obtainable and extremely numerous. Very happy about that!

7. My lips – they’re really pink without having to do anything about it.

8. My freckles – fewer now that I’m better about sunscreen, but a great reminder of a childhood spent on the beach. And they’re cute to look at!

9. My back – it’s again, very strong. I can give large men piggybacks for a long time. No sign of ‘back problems’ either.

10. OK, how to phrase this – my internal health? Low cholesterol, great blood pressure, all those stats that need to be monitored every 10,000 miles? Great. I’m healthy. I’m so glad. Now to make sure I keep it that way.

1. My legs are super muscular and very scarred up. I think it tells a good story of my life, with all of the memories and pain written right there on my legs. There’s the shaving scars, the I-tried-to-do-hurdles-but-rolled-it-on-the-track scars, the weight room scars, the tomboy scars, the list goes on and on, and I love it!
2. My eyes are unique and interesting. They’re blue with hazel around the pupils. They’re probably my favorite.
3. I have a scar that looks like a birthmark on my right shoulder from the aforementioned rolling it on the track. I think it’s interesting and always gets people asking questions.
4. I think my smile is bright and sunny and I love it, mainly because I love to smile!
5. Maybe this ties in with number 4, but I love my teeth as well. It took work to get them like this, but I think they’re pretty.
6. My stomach is muscular and looks good in a bikini.
7. My breasts, hips, and butt are well proportioned to the rest of my body and I think it looks really good.
8. It took a lot of work to get my hair to a point in time that I thought it looked good, and now I’m proud of how it looks and I do really love it.
9. I have a even skin tone that doesn’t break out often. I don’t need to wear much makeup because of that, and that’s way more than nice.
10. This might be a stretch, but I love the way that my hands look after I’ve painted something. They’re covered with different colors and look like they’ve accomplished something. I’m rather proud of that.

6. The way my nose goes up a little at the tip. Especially noticeable in a profile shot.
7. My ears. They both have these weird little indentations/marks on them in the same place (but the marks look different). It looks sort of like I was bitten or something. It’s kinda cool.
8. The shape of my face. I can’t explain why but I really like it.
9. My scars. I have some mega awesome scars, like a half-moon scar on my left knee from when I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
10. My smile and my general facial expressions. I was definitely born my father’s child. I look like him and act like him and have all the same facial expressions-including my smile-as he does and I’m very proud to. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I didn’t think I could do it, but I did.

1. My eyes. They ended up light brown even though both my parents have dark brown. And I like their shape. I like that they have absolutely nothing special about them—no flecks, no weird colors, no heterochromia iridium. They are just my eyes.
2. My skin. Mum says I have my Great-Grandmother Rose’s skin. It’s soft and milky white/ridiculously pale. And it never tans or sunburns.
3. My wrists. Even though they’re super weak and sprain way too easily, I like the size of them and I like the way they look when I have bracelets on.
4. My hands. Specifically, their size in relation to the size of my wrists. Big hands, tiny wrists. I love that.
5. My nose. Often described as ‘cute and button-y’. I have a really awesome freckle on it.

That’s all I can think of right now. I’ll ruminate and return later for the rest.

7. This is kind of cheating, because I mentioned them in number 2, but I really love my wrists. The bones are very flat and wide, an extreme rectangle shape with a big knob on the outside of each. One of my tattoos wraps around the right forearm to emphasize the wrist.

8. It’s a good thing I can’t see my back very easily, because otherwise I would probably stare at it all the time. It’s very muscular, in the beautiful “butterfly” pattern.

9.My stomach does tend to stay pretty flat. I was taught to stand with instructions like this, “Pull your belly button up into your shoulderblades, shoulders down and back, sternum out, now pull the rib cage together in front. Good.” Eventually this becomes second nature and you have a flat stomach. It’s like doing only one crunch—but holding it for the rest of your life.

10. Ten is hard: my arms are pretty useless (as I discovered to my sorrow this spring when I was injured and on crutches) and my legs are becoming unreliable with age. I have tendonitis in one ankle, the aforesaid injury was a torn calf muscle, my knees give me grief after some classes.

I think (though I do feel this is kind of cheating) that I’ll go with overall toughness. I don’t get sick much and my only real structural weakness is a tendency to bruise. Not bad.

(I probably don’t “need” to do this; I already love my body because it can do so much really cool shit. In fact I’m endlessly amazed by and grateful to it. But it looks like fun.)

1. Has got to be my feet. They are not particularly pretty of course, but they are perfect for pointe shoes. They have a nice arch with good ankle flexion, but they aren’t banana feet. They are very strong and mostly square shaped, with just enough taper to make the shoes look very pretty. I need to keep doing the strengthening exercises to keep them looking good.

2. My skeleton. I have a very large frame with a tendency toward “knobbiness” so I have all these interesting lumps: elbows, wrists, ankles, collarbone.

3. I have practically no breasts.

4. Hips. Naturally decent turnout is something I need. Thank goodness I have it.

5. Freckles! On my shoulders!

6. My hands are actually tremendously ugly: they have a naturally bad shape (stubby and chubby and crooked) and I have messed them up with calcium deposits from holding a pencil too hard and chewing my fingernails and hitting them with hammers and dropping large objects on them and covering them with paper cuts and gouging out huge scars with hoof knives and grating off skin together with the cheese… and now I love them.

I think I need to do this.

1. I have very large, blue eyes.
2. I have good complexion—I don’t really need to wear makeup.
3. I’m short… I like being short.
4. I have a nice butt :D
5. My chest isn’t all that bad either!
6. My hair is very wavy, thick, and full of volume… I used to not like that but now I do.
7. I have a very muscular stomach.
8. I only have one scar… I just got that recently and it’s on my ankle so who cares.
9. My legs are really strong.
10. Big cliche incoming… my brain… because I’m a genius :)

They should require this in school.