I found your note in my locker. I found it next to the pen you used and left there in a hurry. You opened my day-use locker to leave me a very important message on top of my belongings that went something like this:
"Hello! Kudos to you for being in the gym post baby!
I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, but I did want to put an offer on the table... I'm an ItWorks distributor and would love to help you shed those extra pounds. I even have something to help rid you of those unsightly stretch marks. Call (your number here) if you're interested!"
I read it, and read it again. Then I balled your note up in an embarrassed hurry, tossed it in the trash can, stopped by the desk to return the pen you used, then got in my car and drove home with tears in my eyes.
You said you didn't want to make me uncomfortable. You did make me uncomfortable.
When I arrived and proceeded to take off my shirt, wrap my waist in a neoprene wrap, cover it with a tank top, and then a baggy shirt to hide all of that, I felt your eyes on me. Burning a hole through me, actually. Did you know that one of the main reasons women avoid the gym is undressing in the locker room? Can you imagine how amplified that may be for a woman after giving birth?
I told myself the entire time that I was just being paranoid, finished dressing and went to start my workout but the note I found upon returning confirms that you were watching me. Why were you doing that? Were you just hanging out in the locker room looking for potential customers? If "ItWorks" why were you in the gym? Spoiler alert, It probably doesn't Work. But thats a debate for a whole other day. This is about me, and my body that you couldn't help but notice in the locker room this morning.
I just can't understand what your motives were in there. I wonder if you've ever been in my shoes. I wonder if your children are older, or if you have just recently bore them too. I wonder if you have children at all. I wish I'd saved the note so that I could call you and ask these things. If you ever stumble upon this, I hope that you'll entertain my questions and tell me exactly what you meant by those loaded words. This is something I'll probably never get to know for sure. But there are also some things you don't know, and that is why I'm not angry with you.
You couldn't have known that today was my very first time inside a gym since my first trimester of pregnancy.
You couldn't have known that as much as I wanted to, exercise during pregnancy was hard and uncomfortable and so going back to exercise was scary and intimidating.
You couldn't have known that my body still aches from labor and my breasts just stopped leaking.
You couldn't have known that today marks one year since I quit taking birth control and we commenced praying to begin a family.
You couldn't have known that I am in a brand new place and walking into a gym that I had trouble finding, as I'd never been there before (though you should understand that part or you wouldn't be in a military gym).
You couldn't have known how much I have loathed my sagging body since I dragged it home from the hospital.
You couldn't have known the number of times I've snubbed myself out loud nor the number of times my husband has had to repeat himself, "Your body this way is the most gorgeous I've ever seen it. You gave me a daughter with this temple."
You couldn't have known that my child is in the ground and not at a daycare or with a friend while I get in some "me time".
You couldn't have known that every day I struggle with wishing I was there with her.
And you couldn't have known how much my stretch marks mean to me.
I stretched, boy did I stretch. My skin has been so tight- across my belly, my hips, my thighs, my breasts, my bottom...
Beginning at 15 weeks I was rubbing on the oil, the cream, the body butter, the lotion... every concoction I could find in any pharmacy or skin care boutique in the tri-county area. I tried it all. I started to find marks early and I giggled at them- a sign that my body is making room for a miracle, but I also tried to prevent them. So I doused myself, 3 times a day like taking an antibiotic, for months. If I wasn't greasy it was time to reapply.
Then I birthed her. My sweet, miraculous 6 lb, 15 oz baby girl. I birthed her, all the fluid and extra fluid around her, and the hefty placenta my midwife and husband both called "beautiful". I birthed a love I didn't know I was capable of.
Then it was all taken from me. She is in Heaven, and I am here only left with the mold she put me in and the hundreds of marks on top of it.
I stopped using lotions and oils.
Maybe that's not healthy. Perhaps that means I am promoting unhealthy skin here. But I don't want whatever you have to help rid me of them. To me, my stripes are the furthest thing from unsightly.
You noticed a small portion of them today- only as much as you could see while I hurried out of and into my top... they must have popped right out at you.
But they have already started fading. I had deep, purple, almost red lines all over me. They itched, they burned, they were tender to the touch.
Now they are turning to match my skin. Some will stay deep and wide- rivers where the skin split early. Others will soon just look like small scars- streams that just formed in the last month while she dropped. I never want them to go away. I want bright purple all over forever.
This is my evidence. "I was here mama," they all shout at me.
"I kicked you," she says in the lines radiating around my belly button.
"I grew in you," she says in the craters on my hips.
"You carried me down here," scream the short and wide marks around my pelvis.
"You took me everywhere with you," whisper the subtle scars down the insides of my thighs.
This is my evidence.
I don't want whatever you have to help me hide my evidence.
I want every single mark forever. I want these scars. When I lose the weight, they will be what remains of the body my Eden gave me.
She made me a mama with them and I will probably never rub another thing on in an effort to hide or reduce the appearance of them.
I wish I could have told you this today. I'm not even sure I would have found the guts had you approached me personally. But I do wish I had the chance. If this ever finds you, I want to tell you that you should stop placing notes in the lockers of women at the gym where you call parts of them distasteful or unpleasant... It won't earn you a client, especially if that client has so much more to their story than "being in the gym post baby".
Thanks, but no thanks.
