We've all gotten those e-mail surveys where you fill out the questions and send them to your friends, then await their reply to the same questions. One question that I have seen on many of these surveys is "if you could change one physical thing about yourself what would it be?" Immediately everyone one of us has a body part, or aspect of their body that pops into mind. "I'd change my nose", "I'd be thinner", "I'd want brown eyes", etcetera, etcetra. Although I admit that I've often thought of my weight as the big thing I'd change, I'd also say the same about my legs. It seems silly I know, but allow me to explain.
I'm about 6 feet tall, and unlike other tall members of my family, I'm all leg! I love that part of me, even if it means that I tend to be as tall, or taller, than most men. It means the person that sits behind me in my car gets less leg room, it means I get leg cramps on airline flights in coach, and it means that I have to buy "tall" pants or they're high water's, but all of this I don't mind. I love having long legs, and one day if I can lose all the weight I want to, maybe they'll be toned and I'll be proud of them. But there are other issues with my legs that I have problems with, and I do wish I could change. As mentioned several times before I have knee problems, this is highly frustrating for me. Just bending my knee gives me what I call rice crispy knees. You can physically feel, and hear the crunching that happens within my knees. A few years ago when I was getting a lot of pain in one of my knees I showed this fact to my doctor as she examined it. The look on her face was truly horrific, and her response was, "Well that can't be good." If your doctor is telling you that, it must be true, lol! The specialist she sent me too did the same thing, and after a knee surgery to fix other problems (torn meniscus cartilage, and floating kneecap) the crunching subsided some...it's creeped back up to loud and annoying again. The crunching is just one of many reasons that I'm not a fan of my legs. The scars from the surgery are another. I also have spider veins which at 28 are rather embarrassing. Finally, and I know this sounds silly, my legs are straight down to the knees but then bow out from my knee down to my feet. I always hated when people would ask me to stand with my feet together...I can't! When I can, my knees have to be placed on top of each other...it's crazy!
I didn't write this blog post to rant about what I do and don't like about myself. Although it's true that we all have things we would like to change about ourselves, these differences make us who we are. To be honest one day I may change my mind and love the things I once hated about myself, but more likely I'll learn to love who and what I am. I'll also find people who love those quirky things about me too. Rather than searching for ways to change ourselves, maybe we should spend more time searching for self worth, and people who are going to encourage our self worth. So today as I ran I thought about how I wore pants to work out in even though it's over 80 degrees outside, and how much I try to hide this disliked part of me. Then I began to think about the fact that these are the same legs that are running, they are the same legs that carry me for the 3-5 miles I choose to run every day, they work hard for 45 minutes to an hour. A few scars, a few rice crispy's, a few blue marks, and even a strange formation are not going to change the fact that they are what are helping me lose the weight that I have been working to lose. They are helping me become happier. So today I think I began to realize that what I once thought was the one part of my body I wanted to change, I'm now happy with. If I can change my mind about how I feel about my legs, what's going to stop me from changing my mind about the rest of me? Today I began with one part of me though, and tomorrow I'll wear shorts to work out in. =)
P.S. - I was singing ZZ Top's "Legs" the entire time I was writing this, lol. I now have a new song for my iPod running playlist! =)
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