CAPTAINS LOG: 2nd December 2018

I am perfectly imperfect. And finally, I am quite alright with that. Discovering this was the next stop of my Sunshine Bus tour. Who decides what perfect looks like anyway? My perfect certainly wouldn’t be yours. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, shouldn’t we be the ones who decide on whether we are perfect or not?

SURELY, how we view ourselves is what is important? So why are we so self-critical? Why would I compare myself to a 5ft 10”, twenty year old Victoria Secrets model? Would that make me happy? No, it wouldn’t because it would be impossible….I’m never going to be that tall. And life should be about achieving your reality not somebody else’s.

THERE is a little French girl who has been called the most beautiful child in the world. No pressure there then?! She is indeed beautiful but more beautiful that any other child? No. Isn’t it because she was used in an advertising campaign then those in that industry, who deem who is beautiful enough to grace the covers of magazines, decided that she deserved that particular accolade?

I know many beautiful children. I know many beautiful adults. Some are beautiful in the traditional sense; symmetrical face, particular features seen as perfect ….whilst others are just beautiful people. I also know people who are deemed as beautiful who are really not very nice or are beyond dull. They wouldn’t know humour if it knocked them on their arse. One person in particular springs to mind. Isn’t she gorgeous? She always looks lovely. Yep, I don’t deny that but she’s also really bloody rude. She has zero manners and can’t even be bothered to pass a hello on her way past. Perhaps she’s shy? Yeah. She’s not….good excuse though!

MY Mum lost her best friend when I was a baby. My Dad used to say that she really wasn’t beautiful but when she walked into a room, it lit up. Men loved her. Women loved her. Her inner loveliness made her beautiful.

IF somebody is kind hearted but isn’t ‘pretty’ does it make her less beautiful?

I had an operation when I was 23. In the nineties, thankfully, we didn’t think putting silicone balls in our boobs so they sat under our chins was normal or nice. And because I had been ‘blessed’ with big knockers, I had a reduction. Shock/horror…Essex girl has a boob reduction. One of the main reasons was physiological. You try working in a bar and having big boobs and see what that shit does to you! Eyes up here buddy!

BUT, operations leave scars. Do they bother me? Do they hell. I have never once regretted my decision. There are other slight complications from this operations but having a foreign object living inside my body isn’t one of them.

I have one other scar and that is from my c-section. That one doesn’t bother me either. That scar bought my babies into the world. Actually I also have a ‘mystery one on my arm….I have no idea how it happened but I went home one day in my red sweatshirt and when I took it off I was bleeding from my arm and I still have the scar. I think I may have got it whilst hanging upside down the aeroplane on Thrift Green.

IF you look through paintings (pre-camera) and photographs (once the camera arrived) I think it’s fairly obvious that as we evolve as humans, so do our looks. Henry VIII, in his heyday, was considered quite the catch. Would he still be considered that by todays standards? Probably not to me but to somebody else he may be their ‘perfect’. Well, apart from the ‘syphilis’ because that shit is never to be considered an attribute.

IT’S no secret that I love shopping at H & M but going online to use their website is like being a voyeur in an eating disorder clinic. Does thin make somebody beautiful? Its not just that they girls are thin but they look so bloody unhappy too. To be fair, they’re probably just hungry. Like really, really hungry.

I love people who are body confident. Jennifer Lawrence said the she refuses to be hungry to make other people happy. I hear ya sister! I did Lighter Life after my boys were born. They should call it ‘Starve yourself for 100 days’ but I guess the sign up would be a lot less. But essentially that’s what it was. I remember going to a wedding a couple of weeks into the diet and the guest had a 5 course meal and I had a packet soup….it was thin, tasteless and looked like dish water. Appetising it was not. I wouldn’t do a diet like that again if you paid me a million bucks. It was dire but shit, did it work. Not because it was a brilliant diet and concept…but because I starved myself.

I own my lumps and bumps and if I, not anybody else, am unhappy then it’s my responsibility to do something about it. There is not a diet out there that works. We don’t need to buy one, download one or follow an app. Its beyond simple. Don’t eat shit and get some exercise. That’s it. Job done! But if you’re like me and don’t have the button in your head that strikes when greed kicks in, you’re in trouble. Two people who I am really close to have one thing in common. They totally get moderation. They eat everything they want…in moderation. Me? I can do a double pack of custard creams (that shit is like crack to me) in around 15 minutes and feeling sick after the first 15 doesn’t stop me either. I love them and because I love them, up to know I’ve been pretty much ‘moderation can kiss my arse’.

WHEN I left home to go live in Israel my parents decided to decorate my bedroom. At the time I had a sofa bed in my room and when they moved it to chuck it out they found 84 chocolate wrappers. Thats what I am, for the most part. A bona fide secret eater. I know the compulsive eating need in me is all kinds of wrong. Not on a judgement level, but for my body. When I arrived in Israel I guess I was a good size 16 and I came home somewhere between an 8 to a 10. For the first time in life, because it was HOTTTTTTT, I drank lots of water. I didn’t eat shit because shit wasn’t really available unless you bought it and money wasn’t exactly flowing. But I think the main reason was that I was so happy.

THESE days it doesn’t matter if I am happy or sad, I eat. But here is what I have really discovered about myself in recent weeks….I am an unconscious eater. I don’t necessarily taste the food I am eating. I just eat. The complete opposite of mindful if you will.

SO I am making a commitment to myself and putting it out there. Not for shame but as a mindful reminder. I am going to learn to enjoy my food. I am going to still eat the things I love but I will practice moderation. For me and for my body.  Moderation will give me what I want without making me miserable.

I am not picture perfect but that’s okay. I don’t need to be. I’m happy being perfectly imperfect because I know its what is on the inside that counts.

BIG SNOGS
Kitty xxx