Bolognaise for breakfast.

I have gone through various phases of thigh girth. There was the teen phase, where my thighs were fleshy with pre-pubescent ignorance. Then came puberty, when they warped into a longer, slightly leaner shape through the discoveries of gym and sex. Then, there was the very depressed and anxious over-excercising and under-eating phase, where my thighs were carved into little wooden splinters. Feeling stronger, I moved to London and found a little of myself and a lot of dodgy food and alcohol and cigarettes and even the odd snort of coke. For the last few years, I have been in the not bothered but totally bothered phase of consuming without desisting. And now, it appears, I am in the phase where I eat leftover bolognaise for breakfast.

Having sex, I find myself often turning away at the sight of my padded out hips, my travelling flesh. Last time, however, I quite liked what I saw. I admit, I have flashes of wanting to be a girl again, where I find myself looking at photos of models and wanting so much to be in the club of the skinnies and space savers. Other times, I think how glorious it is to have curves for others to imagine and my boyfriend and me to savour. When it comes down to it, to the root of my swinging self-acceptance, I suppose it is the difference between being a girl - a child - and being a woman. The idea of woman, of what this means, is heavier, fuller, more whole. The concept of girl conjures images of floating and careening and being as light as a feather. As a woman, one has responsibility and broken hearts and confusion and decisions to make. This is what I mean by heavier. As a girl, life is fine and breezy and, well, lighter.

I suppose the body image thing has much to do about wanting, accepting, inviting what it is to be a woman. The status changes, a different category is fulfilled, another box ticked. If only there were some kind of marker, of definitive point. A road, perhaps, which one crosses from one side to the other, thereby separating girl from woman.

Wise women talk about having found balance and laugh at their younger and insecure selves and wonder how self-acceptance could have possibly taken so long. Before this, what I suppose could be considered the final phase, we worry. Today, I am worried about the girth of my things enough to write this post, but not so much that I can't enjoy microwaved homemade bologniase for breakfast.