The strength of rolling pin arms

And reclaiming your greatness

I was driving around running errands today, minding my own business when Cara Alwill’s Style Your Mind podcast episode about body image sent me down a path of self-reflection. But, instead of the outcome being me crying behind the wheel, her story made me recognize the current appreciation I have for my body, and just how much my past influenced my relationship with my body.

I have always been curvy, and what most people would now refer to as “thick”. For my body, that translates to thicker thighs and arms, a smaller waist and a booty. Cute tops with any kind of fitted sleeve have always taunted me, and as a teen I ended up buying men’s jeans because they came in different waist sizes and were wider in the leg. This was also back in the 90s during the earlier phases of wide-legged jean fashion - women’s curvy jeans were not a thing yet.

My mother always struggled with her weight, and I now understand, her self-worth overall. For as long as I can remember she was always referring to how fat she was, how she hated the way she looked, and I witnessed her try every fad diet and pill (fen-phen era) that was on the market only to gain all the weight back in the end. Unfortunately, she also pushed those thoughts and feelings down towards me, warning me that I could end up fat or alluding to me already being fat and needing the same help she did. Which led to me believing it. I was, in fact, not fat at that point in my life.

Yep, we even had the good ol’ Shake Weight in the house.

She was not the only influence in my life that made me self-conscious about my weight nonstop. When your body is shaped differently, it’s bound to get called out. In high school, I had someone point to me in a swim team photo and comment that they thought I was a guy due to my shoulders and arms. I have always loved how strong my shoulders look, but that took me down a few pegs. In middle school I had a boy poke me in the thigh and then declare they “jiggled like Jello”. I was then known as Jello Thighs for a while. I also developed earlier than some girls, but we won’t get too deep into what boys are like when girls sprout boobs before most of them realize they’re going to like them a lot later in life.

It didn’t help that a lot of the women in my life were thicker women who I came to realize were self-conscious of their size (unfortunately most women tend to be - thanks society). I am shaped like my dad’s four sisters. Their weight may have ranged between them, but they are all shorter, curvy and thick. Two of my female cousins are also shaped similarly.

The interesting thing is that for a lot of my early life I didn’t see them as anything but women with strong, curvy bodies. They’d don two-pieces when we got together to swim during the summer. I’d often see them in short shorts or tighter clothing. And they were always independent ass women who would lift the heavy thing or knew which tools they needed to fix things themselves or what to do when you were sick or bleeding (two of them were nurses). Young me saw their bodies as beautiful and strong (I still do).

My grandfather once described his German descent aunts as all having rolling pin arms and at the time I heard it I thought it was great. Picturing these thick armed, strong women that could hold up anything. I mean, what is a rolling pin if not a strong tool that can turn harder textures into the smooth base of something delicious? Until I repeated it to a friend, and they gasped saying they’d be so offended if someone had said that about them. I honestly can’t remember how he was using the example at the time, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he had been calling them fat in his own way. He would later in my life ask one of my cousins why she wanted my fat ass in her wedding, when I wasn’t in the room of course.

So, it was confusing and incredibly hurtful when those same women (my mom included) would pull at what I was wearing because they thought it clung a little too tight or make comments about what I ate and my weight as my body went from skinny kid to curvy teen. I recognize now all of that was more tied up in societal pressures and their own shit and less about me. But it was a part of the overall mindfuck, nonetheless.

Of course, by the time I actually did start putting on weight in college I had such a negative self-mindset due to a ton of different factors (and likely undiagnosed depression and anxiety) that it almost felt like I deserved to finally physically be fat. I hated myself so much, had always been told that I was destined to be fat and now here I finally was fat.

I’ll be honest I just read that back to myself and literally said out loud, “What the fuck?” Because now I can see how inaccurate that was. But I’m also sitting here in my 40s after having done some serious self-work over the past six years or so. Twenty-something me was in a much different place.

Spoiler alert, your girl is still fat. Actually, I’m probably at my heaviest right now. I may have seen my fully naked body in a hotel mirror as I got out of the shower recently and remarked that I looked like the Venus of Willendorf. I don’t know about you, but having a body type that has been sculpted and honored as a goddess doesn’t really feel all that wrong to me now.

While I am not always the kindest to my body - I definitely have not been moving as much as I should, and I’m often fueled on fast food or takeout - I have a completely different relationship with my it than I did in the past. Especially after spending 2022 dealing with long healing injuries and having 2023 derailed by debilitating, full body, chronic hives and angioedema.

The truth is, no matter what the scale reads, or if noticing my double chins may make me take pause, my short, thick ass body is strong.

I feel that when I lift weights. I relish in it when I can hold yoga or barre poses. I’ve hauled over 20 bags of river rock from my car to my backyard and then proceeded to fill in multiple garden beds, by myself, more than once. I regularly push heavy furniture and boxes around my house and up or down stairs on my own (in hindsight, not the safest move). I can lift and/or hold back my solid, 50-pound bully mix when he goes bull in China shop and not fall over or be pulled over.

And I was feeling it again this morning as I hauled my ass onto my spin bike and got in the first decent workout since I’ve been hive free this year. Even if I now feel like I got my ass kicked!

At some point my relationships with my mom and aunts changed, and I can’t tell you the last time I felt like they were assessing my weight. I’d love to think it’s because they recognized that I could do great things no matter my body size. I’d also love to think maybe they finally see how amazing they and their strong bodies have always been.

It’s funny how a quick podcast can simultaneously send you down memory lane and help you realize that treating yourself with love and grace can, over time, help that girl inside of you who felt like she deserved punishment heal and reclaim her greatness.

If you’re interested in listening to the podcast I’m referring to, check it out here. It’s one of many of Cara’s podcasts that have inspired me this year.

With love,

Mary-Agnes