Judgement Day

Growing up Catholic this was not an unfamiliar term but as I have grown older this has taken on a whole new meaning. Going to the pool for the fist time each summer in a bathing suit - is Judgment Day.

Why do we women feel the pressure to be perfect? To look a certain way? And ultimately to take down those women who make it happen!  I am not talking about a commentary about advertising today, magazines, or reality TV. I think women have always felt the need to be something that we are not - for someone else.

My poor eight-year-old son, always analyzing everything and I say to him don't over analyze life, just have fun. yet here I am.  "Hello Apple" Secretly happy for the sudden cold snap so that I can delay going to the pool a little while longer.  We've been to the pool just twice but I have been able to avoid the whole bathing suit thing thus far.

But what did I do was giggle at the family that walked into the neighbors pool the other night.  It was hard not to it's Saturday night at a pool in the Midwest and 85 degrees outside.  The wife is in a Maxi dress perfectly coiffed hair, make-up ,and heels! The husband is in a polo bathing suit that does not look like it has ever been washed let alone swam in and a crisp white long sleeve polo dress shirt. untucked. leather loafers. The children following behind a boy and a girl look like models right off the front window of Abercrombie and Fitch.

The irony is I do not want to be judged in my bathing suit, but here I was giggling at Barbie and Ken....and whatever it was they named their kids. The more insecure we feel, the more we need to take others down there with us to Insecurville.  I guess if you can't beat 'um - join 'um right?

I don't think that Judgment Day will be the end, the last, the finale. I think it is every day that we are given the opportunity to choose.  Do I tell my child I told you so, do I berate myself in the car when I miss the turn, do I make a sarcastic comment to my husband, do I talk about someone at the pool?

A very wise women wrote "I Didn't want my level of self-love to limit how much I could love my children or my husband.  Why? Because loving them and accepting their imperfections is much easier than turning the light of loving-kindess on myself....I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person." Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection http://brenebrown.com/

Judgment Day is everyday and I am going to choose to start but not judging the woman in the mirror - not even in her bathing suit!