I’ve been talking to friends about self-perception. If you’ve read earlier things I've written, you know I had a baby. And it wasn’t yesterday. It was 2 years ago, and, at this point, I'm feeling like the "you just had a baby" excuse is no longer such a good one. My body has changed - but I’ve just been waiting to get back to 
“normal". In my neighborhood, there's a lot of women pushing strollers looking as if they never had a baby and I always thought that would also be me. But now I'm starting to wonder if I need to accept a new normal and make peace with it. Maybe. I am actually going to try a little more before giving up my old clothes. And that's positive. The less positive part is that self-acceptance is just not that easy.
When I told a friend this, she said, “You know, when I was skinny I didn’t even think about it. I thought it was normal and I just found other things wrong with me.” I know so many women – smart, beautiful, interesting women – who talk about what they wish they had or didn’t have and what they’d like to change about themselves. I even hear it from models and actresses and women everyone would describe as nothing less than beautiful.
In the best of worlds we just wouldn't care – but we all know there is a certain standard of what's considered beautiful (and not). Still, it doesn’t mean we should let it define who we are or make us unable to love what we have. I think that sometimes when we're so busy looking at what we don't like we don't even realize what we do.
I mentioned this to another friend and she made me laugh because she said, “You know what? Sometimes I look at pictures and think about how bad I look. And then I realize that in 10 years I’ll look back and think I looked awesome!” This, I think, is amazing - because as we go through life it all becomes relative. And if the future you is going to look back and see how great you look and are, why not let the present you see it too?