Self-Acceptance

Acceptance is a virtue for recovering alcoholics I'm told and I've learned to accept certain things, but not everything.

I've accepted, to a degree that I have a small bone structure, giving me small wrists, narrow shoulders. It's ectomorphism, with an inability to gain weight, not having much muscle mass, and a skinny physique. I have trouble finding watch bands that fit. Usually I need a jeweler to adjust the expansion band to fit my tiny wrist. It's hard finding jeans in my size in the slim style. Regular or relaxed fit will make me look like a kid trying on his daddy's jeans.

Acceptance for my slightness of physique didn't come easy or overnight and it hasn't come entirely. Well-meaning friends  remark that I am too skinny. I should eat more. One gal did this at a church barbecue. She yelled, "You better eat. You're WAY too skinny!" Heads turned and my ears got red. Afterward I smoldered, I didn't call attention to her obesity. I didn't say she shouldn't load her plate with two helpings but later in the night I kept thinking about retorts that I thought I should have launched.

During a visit to my dermatologist I was to receive a cortisone shot for my severe eczema and the doctor noticed my weight on my patient chart. Before he said anything I told him, "I'm an ectomorph, what can I do? That's the way it is."

"Well, George although ectomorphs lack muscularity and mass they do have one outstanding characteristic." I met his eyes for the answer. "Ectomorphs have outstanding stamina. That's why marathon runners are characteristically skinny. You're a runner. You have  endurance that makes you able to run five miles or more. You're not a marathon runner but you don't do too badly for a man of sixty-seven years. Enjoy your ectomorphism."

When I see myself in the mirror I see what's there versus what I'd like to see or more accurately, what I think others want to see. At times I accept the physique God gave me and other times I don't. After a run I feel good about myself.

Then there are times  when I condemn myself and I think I should put on a lot of weight. A real man has heft, huskiness.My mom used to say I was so skinny I wouldn't cast a shadow. Other times she said I was so light that a good puff of wind would blow me away. I tried weight-lifting and increased calorie intake to no avail. All I'd got was a flabby stomach but the rest of me was still skinny.

 Last year at work some snowmobile riders returning from the gin mills in an altered state said "You ain't as pretty as the gal on the afternoon shift." Construction workers have referred to me as "ma'm" when they come to check out of the hotel.  They smirk at my small, thin hands as they navigate the computer keyboard. I don't flinch, blush or bat an eyelash. I'm all business but after my shift is done and I'm alone, self-condemnation comes like a flood.

People tend to have these neat little definitions or boxes in which they can put people. They scorn the people who fail to fit into them, mostly silently, sometimes in gossip or they launch  blunt cruel words as when someone is deemed too fat, too thin, too masculine for a female or too feminine for a male. Not white enough, not having a pot-gut and facial hair, not big enough, not petite enough, not dressed right, not driving a bad-ass truck. They don't think (or care) for a moment, how Got sees them They also do not realize that they fall short of aesthetic  perfection. They are the ones who need self-examination, to figure why they have the need to demean others.

Self-acceptance will increase, but it's non-linear with respect to time.