I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to break up with some of my magazines.
One of the ways I relax is to grab my favorite magazine, fill Pinky (my deep, porcelain on steel, clawfoot tub in my insanely pink bathroom) with bubbles, and soak for an hour reading. I read a variety of magazines, most of them fitness and health oriented. But I've found that lately, instead of making me feel better about myself, they're making me question whether our relationship should continue.
It started last month with a bikini issue of a magazine devoted to women and fitness. It promised that even I could have a bikini body. The pages were full of empty promises and photos of swimsuit models with flat tummies and abs. Now I guarantee I work as hard at my fitness as any of those girls do, but I won't ever have a bikini body...no matter what my magazine whispers in my ear...not even with these five belly-fat blasting moves! My longsuffering husband sat and listened to me rail that this magazine, rather than making women feel better about themselves, was doing just the opposite! After all, according to the pages, EVERYONE can have a bikini body...everyone, that is, EXCEPT YOU!
That was the first magazine to get the boot. I didn't need to be reminded every year that everyone, except me (and about 80% of the female population) can have a bikini body.
Then last month I got another magazine that promised to let me in on a few secrets that were giving away my age. "Okay," I thought, "I'll bite!" So, feeling pretty darn good about my 44 year old size 2/4 body that has carried me through 33 marathons, and can still garner catcalls from "Woo Guys" on a sunny, I sunk into Pinky ready to make sure I wasn't wearing white after Labor day or some other egregious sin, decrying that I was not YOUNG but was, indeed MIDDLE AGED.
By the time I was done having the conversation with my beloved magazine, I was sure I needed laser resurfacing on my face, Restlin stuffed into my horrifying smile lines, poison injected into my forehead, and an eye lift. Wouldn't it just be a lot cheaper to invest in a sturdy paper bag to spare society the sight of my visage?
Into the trash went THAT magazine.
Today I grabbed a magazine all about women's fitness and started an article about how women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s could have their best bodies. A minute-old harbody showed me some great moves to tone my abs and buns. I read, always eager to learn more about how I could take this amazing body from my 40s into my 50s looking and feeling my best.
Instead I got the literary version of a condescending pat on the head ("Hot mama?!" Some of us 40-somethings actually are NOT mamas). Then I read that, like it or not, I was going to gain weight, but even though I certainly wasn't ever going to get back what I might have had at one point, I could still get some results from these moves (if they let me out of the Home, and I didn't break a hip in the process).
So that's it! They are all gone! I'm sticking with my gender-neutral magazines from now on! No one tells Lance Armstrong he could use some Botox (but I'm betting someone might mention it to Dara Torres). After all, I have enough self doubt as it is without a magazine adding to it.
So magazines, and you know who you are, consider our relationship OVER. Go abuse other women because I'm through being your punching bag. Or better yet, how about helping ALL women feel strong and confident where they are, helping them to reach their goals, without cataloging their flaws.