Because someone will feel this way too...

I'm kind of ashamed that this is even an issue because I've always been a supporter of women loving themselves and their bodies. I've been a huge fan of the Dove Self Esteem Foundation from the start. I've given devotionals about individual worth. But still. I am a teenage girl and I am subject to the same feelings as anyone else.

My shame aside, I've decided (perhaps rashly) to publish this anyway in the event that one of my 10 followers may have similar feelings (or maybe someone will stumble upon my blog who does).

So, I'm 19 years old (recently), and at 5'7", I weigh roughly 133 lbs. I admit, I gained some weight during my freshman year of college (not to mention the less-than-desirable nutritional experience at the caf). Yet, after learning that I can, indeed, run a mile (and more!), cutting down on portion sizes, making healthier decisions, learning and inventing loads of salad recipes, and generally being mindful of my daily calorie intake to calorie burned ratio, I can now say that after two months, I have lost less than five pounds. I feel healthier and I learned to love exercise, but at the end of the day, I still turn to the left and face the mirror to see, to my great horror, a "bubble butt".

This term brings us to another interesting point; namely, its origin. I think I was near 14 years old when my sister first applied the term to the growth attached to my backside. Happily, I remained in plucky disbelief for another year or so. Yet as my sophomore year in high school came and went (along with a most unfortunate, if voluntary, weight-lifting class experience), I noticed that my arms had filled out a little more and now some of my shirts weren't quite fitting in the same way...

Fast forward a bit. I stood at the BMV, filling out the information that would go on my license. "Eye color:" "Brown." "Hair color:" "Brown." "Weight:" "Uh..."

I explained to the lady (you know... that lady...) that my weight fluctuated a lot, which was true. I wasn't exactly sure of my weight, although I remember my last embarrassing weigh-in was somewhere in the 120s. Yet, I convinced myself, the number has only been that high for the past two weeks or so (though I rarely had access to a scale and wouldn't actually have known if it had been otherwise). I remembered being 115 not too long ago (which was also, though suddenly less, embarrassing), so that's what I went with.

Now the fun stuff.

Never before in my life have I been told that I should even think of losing weight. All my memories of bringing up discontent about my girth had always been met with the most convicted and emphatic "No. You absolutely do NOT have to lose weight." Such responses often came with a smattering of compliments on my slenderness and affectionate threats of disencouragement. So, naturally, as I come home from school, fully conscious that I'd packed a bit on, and try on a recently acquired t-shirt in front of my mother, I am more than a little taken aback when she suggests I keep the shirt, which was tight enough to show EVERY nook and cranny, and just lose weight.

"See?" she says as she pinches my love handles.

Dear reader, I wish you could hear the sigh I'm sighing right now. It's the sound of a wind that is laden with emotion and ironically sick of caring carried out of a body that has always been too fat, too thin or an uncomfortable, and not quite socially acceptable, both.

Months hence, I feel healthier, I love exercise, but I still have a "bubble butt".