I often watch movies, with a weak female role (not her acting, but her character’s flaws), and get so angry. Sometimes I even yell at the screen such things as:

“Why in God’s name would you open that door???”

“Oh my word, are you an idiot?”

“He is SUCH a jerk. You are buying right into him!”

Or even just the occasional *eye roll*.

Weak female characters in movies drive me pretty much insane, but I fear it is because I see something of myself in those very characters. The irrational motives, illogical though processes, just wanting him to love and accept you so much it costs you a sense of self, being naive about the future and unable to forget the past, etc, etc. All of us have lived a piece of those weak characters, and I am ashamed to admit this.

But I stand today as a strong, independent, woman. What a catch phrase. I have survived many emotional insanities and still, I stand. I stand because even though at one point in my life I have been the weak female character, today, I am not. 2010 is here, and in its first five days I was nailed again and again with brutally stressful events that tried to break me. Things that made you say “holy crap, what is next?” yet fearful to ask that question at the same time…2010, I hope, was just handing me its bad events all in a single shot glass, with the hope that the rest of the year is a giant, sugary, margarita. I can only hope it comes with tiki lights and all.

I stand, and I survive. I have weak moments, as all humanity faces. Some of are resilient, we bounce back, some, unfortunately, do not. What we don’t realize is that despite not wanting to think about the horrible things that can happen or how we would handle them, it is important to understand that most of us will handle them with grace and strength. If you face what I have, whether more or less, most of you will come through just fine, if not better. A little thing I am learning from tuning into PBS’ “This Emotional Life.” It is rather inspiring to see what people have come through, are facing, and have worked past. We all face the grief cycle of emotions, but most of us, come out standing. We stand.

Yesterday, flapping my feet in the water of my aquatics class, we all began discussing the things about our bodies that stand apart. One was her bum, another her rib cage, and we expressed how we were all losing in different areas, and how no matter what, we would never lose some areas. I began to really understand a lot more about my self consciousness issues. It has nothing to do with them. My body is solely mine-just as I control my thoughts, I control my body. I can work out every single day for the next month, and yet, when all this excess weight is gone, I will still have well founded, full, muscular legs that will never be sticks. Just as another girl will work her tush for hours on end (ha!) and never lose it. We are built beautifully and incredibly different. And it is just that..beautiful. Wow, that is awesome. Awesome, not a shame. It means that looking to the future and imagining someone else’s body as my own is ridiculous. I will never be that, nor should I want to be. My body is beautiful and different. Yay for that. Embracing uniqueness…

I stand, with my curvy, muscular legs, full of my resilience.