Glad I'm Not A Model

For SO MANY reasons, lol!
When I was a kid I was taller than most of the other kids my age. (Yeah, school dances were FUN!) A lot of people (read: EVERYONE AND THEIR FRICKIN" AUNT GLADYS!) commented on my height, and some suggested I consider becoming a model. Which was nice. Until the inevitable follow-up comment, "But you'd really have to watch what you eat." [Apply sound of needle scratching record here.]
Talk about a back-handed compliment!
And, let me say straight out, I was NOT heavy as a kid. (And even if I was, it's just rude!) I was VERY active. I rode my bike/skateboard everywhere, swam for hours in the summer, took tennis lessons every Saturday (although most of the exercise there came from my kicking, screaming, and begging not to have to go), took dance and drama, and just plain played for hours on end. I even attempted Little League baseball. Unsuccessfully. Ahem.
Then came the 80's. Olivia Newton John released "Physical," and I exercised in my room every night while listening to the entire album. Then, miracle of miracles, we got a VCR and a Jane Fonda workout tape and, let me tell, ya, I ROCKED those legwarmers!
And, to go along with all this, I ate. Food. Real food. The low-fat revolution was just getting underway, so this was before I and everyone else loaded up the shopping cart with chemically-laden fake food. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't blase about my diet. I had TONS of Irish-Catholic/Jewish guilt mixed in with my meals. From the time I was 5 or 6 I heard "You're not fat yet, but you have to be careful." (Meanwhile my gangly, skinny brother heard "Eat! you're so skinny! You're a growing boy, you need the nutrients!" 'Cause, y'know, growing girls don't need nutrients, they need to be put on diets and taught about disordered eating. Tradition, tradition! And skinny boys need to CONSTANTLY hear just how skinny they are!)
So, anyway, I grew up hearing messages about how I was tall and pretty, but not quite pretty enough. Not "model" pretty, because I actually ingested my food. And at times when I would actually GAIN WEIGHT (gasp!) like, during PUBERTY (the horror!), MAN, would I hear it! Even my high school drama teacher would make negative comments about my weight (um, inappropriate, much?) until said Jane Fonda tapes came along I and lost weight. Then all would be well. At least for a little while.
But I'd gotten the message. Thin=good, fat=bad. Person. I was not a good person if I put on weight. No one would love me. Hell, no one would LIKE me much. Weight is EVIL!!!!!!! And even during my thin times, I'd been through puberty and now had hips and boobs, so modeling was out! I'd NEVER be a model now!
From that moment on, I envied the smaller-busted girls. The ones with narrow figures. The ones who didn't have to worry about boys pointing and laughing at her bouncing boobs in gym class, and who didn't get hit on in the subway by guys 20 years older who thought she was in her 20's and not 14. Who maybe weren't leered at as much by creepy men on the street. Who didn't have to worry about their weight as much.
Who had boyfriends, and were asked to parties, and asked to slow dance at the school dances.

Tomorrow I will turn 39. It occurred to me last night, as I was teaching my SIXTEENTH Pilates class in a week, that if i HAD been blessed with the kind of figure I'd wanted, I probably would have had a very different life. I'd certainly have had different hangups. ("Why are my boobs so small? Why can't I look more 'feminine?'" Because small breasts=masculine, right? Because GOD FORBID we be female and HAPPY with our bodies!) But it was through my EDs and all my body image issues that I finally have come to a place of semi-acceptance. I'm not saying that having bulimia, borderline anorexia, and over-exercising were GOOD things, but I can say that I have FINALLY learned to take care of myself. To eat good, healthy, tasty food and ENJOY it. To exercise because of how it makes me feel, and not because I need to work off the pasta I ate. I'm not 100% there yet, but I'm closer than I've been since I started getting all those negative messages a s a young girl.
And teaching 16 classes in a week? Yeah. Not gonna happen again. (I was subbing a lot, as well as teaching my own.) One thing I'm going to learn from this new apprenticeship is when to join in the class, and when to step aside and observe.
But it's nice to know I can teach 16 (actually, 17, as I have a mat class tonight) in a row and not keel over,lol!
So I'm not a model. I'm not an actress anymore. I don't have to worry about whitening my teeth, doing my nails, plucking my eyebrows (youch!), counting calories, getting older, my stretchmarks, my less-than-perfect abs, waxing, getting pedicures, styling my hair, applying makeup, or any of the other million "maintenance" things that I used to have to do just to walk into an audition. I don't have to spend $300 for professional headshots, and another $150 to get them re-touched (to get rid of the "flaws.") I don't have to feel like one of a million desperate women sitting in the waiting room going over my script, only to be dismissed as too old, too fat, or too ugly the minute I walk into the room, before I even open my mouth.

I don't feel like a failure anymore. And that's the first time in over 3o years that I can say that.