I have to admit that I was really proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and posting myself on the internet and I mean ALL of myself on the internet. I am not a good-looking man nor have I ever been. When I first started getting familiar with my naked self it was in the confines of my own home, safe from all of those that would judge me and the only negative comments I would get was when I had the bravery to look down (so often we are our own worst critics). With time I seemed to get more accepting of myself and my flaws and had the nerve to take my first vacation to a nude beach. I must admit that the freedom of being out in the open was liberating as was the ability to see that so many people like me, wanting to enjoy the warmth of summer sun and breezes on all of my skin yet I was greeted with two opposing realizations: one was joy to see all sorts of bodies, ages, races out enjoying a fine day, while the other was the resentment of all of those men and women with the perfect bodies who make the rest of us cringe just a little before we decide to ignore the tight abs and asses that have just passed by and get back to the feeling of freedom.
I thought that I was getting over the feelings of inadequacy and middle-agedness until yesterday…
Yesterday I posted a picture of myself that let it all hang and was intended to inform all others that I had truly arrived in the land of naked self-acceptance.
That was until I realized that when you click on said picture that it will be presented to you in the grand size of 280477 bytes, 1107 x 1600 pixels, which in my opinion is damn freakin’ large.
When this picture is opened to full size you get it: I’m 47, I have a little pot-belly that I was trying hard to suck in on that photo. You can see every pore, mark, blemish and wrinkle. When you look close you ascertain that I have a gut but no biceps, thank goodness you can’t see my calves because they are pretty sorry as well and I won‘t even comment on my sinking 47 year-old ass. Every part of my body that I have ever hated, ever wanted to cover up, ever felt inadequate about screams out in that photo and I had to fight my own demons from deleted the damn thing from the minute that I opened it up.
I’ve just recently met a new acquaintance on the internet with the same feelings on baring your body and baring your soul. This person is beautiful in every way and I realized what makes her so is her commitment to loving herself inside and out and this is apparent in her smile, her eyes, and her lack of self-consciousness when she is naked - just as it should be. I didn’t notice any flaws when I ran across her on the net; If she has them I’m not aware, however I still am envious of the look of innocence and joy when she is naked and the next time we pass an email I’ll have to ask her how she got there; I’d like to follow in her steps both to trace the path and to reach that destination.
So the picture stays as is: no resizing or cropping or cool soft-focus editing and I take another step in realizing that that we may all have defects and blemishes, some more apparent than others and some more amplified by our own fears until they are larger than life so we cannot look past them and cannot enjoy the day, the sun and the warm gentle breeze.
The picture stays and on the next warm day I promise to enjoy the wind…
Posts
