Going belly up.

(NOTE: the picture behind the cut might be slightly NSFW.)

When I regard my carcass, I've always had two pain points: my flibbety-flubbety upper arms (despite the leaps I've made in self-acceptance, the upper arms will always be an ARGH for me), and my belly. To be honest, I've always felt something of a disconnect with my entire body, simply because for such a long time, it was a failure in my eyes. The second you get the "you have SUCH a pretty face" line, it's almost impossible not to experience that disconnect. Occasionally, my legs would be admired (even before getting more active, I sported fairly hardcore gams), but other than that...a trainwreck on two legs.

So it's safe to say taking pictures of myself in less than full-metal clothing coverage never, ever happened. Well, until this evening.



Stacy Bias, the founder of Fat Girl Speaks, has a new project, Bellies Are Beautiful, which encourages people to upload pictures of their bellies. All bellies, be they flubbety-jubbety, wiggly-woggly, scarred, stretch-marked, concave, convex, flat, or otherwise. I went through the pictures and enjoyed seeing so many different bellies, as silly as that might sound. And I started thinking, "why the fuck not post up my own". I put it off for a few days, "forgetting" to bring my camera into my room and swearing to myself, "oh, I'll do it tomorrow". Finally, I couldn't excuse myself out of it anymore and spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of my belly.

At first...horrified. I had a certain view in my head of what my bare belly looked like, and what I was seeing in the pictures WAS NOT WHAT WAS IN MY HEAD. Flesh poking out at angles that I never noticed before, for Christ's sake. Flesh...just...EVERYWHERE. MUST COVER THAT FLESH, my brain shrieked. But I resisted the urge to delete the holy fuck out of the pictures I was taking and just kept on truckin' until I started...to dig it. I'm telling you, I was thisclose to ditching the bra and letting it hang, baby. And maybe that'll be another picture for another day as that particular area's another pain point. Fuck, if I can't get one person to eyeball my equipment in private, why not fling it onto the internet for all to see? :-P

I finally got three or four that I wasn't just satisfied with, but that...well, that I loved. I suddenly came over all lovey about something I had hated for so long. It looks all...pretty and soft. At least, it does to me. Which, at this stage of the game, is really all I care about. And I dig it enough to let it make its internet debut.

ETA: I thought I should have encircled it in sparklies and flashy things. Instead, under the advice of a friend, I suggest you make a little trumpet flourishy sound right as you look at it.

BELLAY!!!!!!!!!!

(with a hint of terribly stylish Lane Bryant bra)