Why I am lucky

I was thinking today about how lucky I’ve been in life. In my social media work, I see article after article by, for, and about women and what we should or shouldn’t think, eat, wear, do to workout, do to our bodies, do for fun, what have you, and it made me think of how lucky I have been in growing up.

– I was a teenager before the internet. The end.

OK, well besides the obvious:

– I was a teenager in the 90s where oversized everything and flannel shirts were in style – nothing I owned was form fitting, even remotely. I would borrow and wear my brothers’ sweatshirts to go to school in. I was never teased for what I wore, regardless of what it was. I actually was at the theater watching Grumpy Old Men when it premiered. I was wearing the EXACT same flannel coat as Walter Matthau’s character. It was a hand-me-down from my dad. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Me with a baby raccoon! Why? Because it is a baby raccoon! What other reason would I have to post this???

– I grew up playing sports. Always playing sports. And thinking being tough, not pretty, was cool.

– It didn’t bother me too much that some guys teased me and called me a “lesbian” because I didn’t fawn over them. For fun, I enlisted the help of my brother to help me create a faux boyfriend named Phillip who lived in Eagan. We eventually broke up.

– I never thought being “skinny” was better than being fit, and being the best athlete I could be at whatever sport I was doing at the time. In fact, I used to equate being skinny with being weak and never, ever wanted to be weak. Having big shoulders was to me the epitome of looking strong, and thankfully I took up rowing in college.

C2 OHS. Not as easy as it looks.

– At West Point I was surrounded by a group of friends who embraced being the (negative in it’s ‘true’ usage) term “Grey Trou” to take away the power from the jerky guys who wanted to use it against us. It’s even in the yearbook. #fact

– I never made friends with any bitches.

– I have some friends that care about how they look, and some that don’t care that much about how they look but regardless, they never make ME feel like I need to worry about how I look.

Sisters!

– I never stopped trying new sports, which I would like to think keeps me humble, at least a little bit. Regardless, it’s helped me to ensure I never really get good at any one thing, but am just OK at lots of things which is really, really fun.

Working some side control with the boy.

– I have a husband that encourages me to take trips with the girls and I have some very adventurous and super bad-ass girls to take different kinds of trips with.

Girls trip! We are clearly having fun even though it is cold as shit.

– I never learned how to put on eyeliner.

– I had a handful of coaches that always helped me see the positive side of things and inspired me to not just be a better athlete, but a better person.

I will argue until the day I die that there is NO way you can fit 3 people into our 3-person tent.

– I have a husband that isn’t worried my tattoos reflect negatively on him even though some people at his work give me funny looks sometimes. (The upside is no-one will ever stare at your chest when you’ve got arms with ink!)

My favorite picture, ever. I’m blurry because I am laughing so hard I couldn’t hold still.

– I work with companies that encourage women to be happy and fit, not fit a prescribed kind (or size) of happy.

– I have a husband that thinks I am cool just the way I am.

So yeah, I’d say I’ve been pretty lucky. In my 36 years I have no doubt had my moments of wishing I looked like THIS or THAT but why would I want to look like someone else? I want to look uniquely like me. Big legs and all. I have a capable and healthy body and I’m lucky as shit for that. But even luckier to have some awesome friends and family that never make me feel like I should be anything other than just ME.

So many great gals in SAV!