This is going to sound like a really cheesy after-school special. Well give me a break: I was home schooled and we didn’t own a TV, so we didn’t get to watch them. Plus, there is no such thing as “after school” when your desk is the dining room table. So maybe I have to learn the sentimental lessons you already know a little later than most. Don’t even do it: criticize homeschoolers and you’ll end up in hell. Even you couldn’t be that heartless.
Anyway, I’m self-conscious. I have some major body issues. Stretch marks, too big of torso, pasty skin, hyperhydrosis. I know no one wants to hear me gripe and complain and list all my insecurities, so I’m sorry I had to sneak up on you like that. Ever since having a baby, I’ve been trying desperately to get my college body back. I’ve learned I have to work 150% as hard to weigh 150% as much. I try to log 30 miles a week, whether it be walking or running. At first, it was all in vain the name of weight loss. But each night after dinner, my husband walks with me and we talk about our days at work, our plans for the house, our next vacation, maybe one day having babies. Our walks have become about something other than weight loss that was never going to happen.
So I’m not a ten, or even a nine or eight. Not to most people, anyway; but I am to Steve (probably an eight, but anywhere in the top three numbers will do for me). And when he tells me I’m so pretty, who am I to question him? So yeah, I’m not perfect. Who is? I don’t want my insecurities to lead me into some plastic surgery marathon like Heidi Pratt, anyway. What I want is what I already have: a man who thinks I’m beautiful right now. And sure, I’ll still rub some stretch mark cream on my stomach when I finally find it again in the bottom of our cupboard (that shit doesn’t work anyway), and I’ll still get off my lazy behind and step onto that treadmill, but even if I didn’t, he’d love me.
I don’t need everyone to think I’m beautiful, just the one guy who I think is.
She likes me for me
Not because I look like Tyson Beckford
With the charm of Robert Redford
Oozing out my ears
But what she sees
Are my faults and indecisions
My insecure conditions
And the tears upon the pillow that I shed
-“Hey Leonardo” by Blessid Union of Souls.
holly pelesky 
holly,
you have already reached a point of security that some woman never reach… to realize how they feel about themselves doesn't effect how others feel about them. for some, or most, women, even when their husbands tell them they are beautiful, it is hard to believe, and hard to accept.
and you are so blessed to have a hubby that loves you so much, that will tell you that… some women, no matter how hott, will never hear how beautiful they are from their love. sad. and it only makes their level of insecurity and their desire for perfection to increase.
ps… i love this post.
Yeah..what she said. And you KNOW you're the cutest couple, my favorite couple. Ever. Even when you dress me in toddler clothes. 🙂