Momservation: I may be a soft and bruised pear—but everyone knows those are the best ones.
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Deep down I always knew I was a pear.
I guess I was glad I wasn’t an apple or banana, and I would’ve preferred strawberry, but by the end of my senior year of high school it was apparent I wasn’t going to sprout any more up top to change my fate.
Sure, I was able to deny my destiny for a while. As a competitive track athlete my taught muscles and zero body fat were able to disguise the disproportion as a teen.
Winning Best Tight End my senior year (and probably my fabulous feathered hair) also helped distract from the fact that due to family genetics I was doomed to be bottom heavy.
But after quitting the track team in college and subsisting on mac n cheese, Top Ramen and Keystone (Light, though!) while spending more time at Greek mixers than the gym, my fruity side started to show.
Desperate to fight my fate I began a 20 year battle to keep my outer pear at bay by tapping into my inner determination. I would still have my Ranch dressing, chili cheese fries and Oreo binges, but I would run, swim, or bike (and sometimes all three by taking up triathlons) to trick my body into being something outside the fruit bowl. (Except for my two pregnancies where I just gave into being an apple for the good of the babies. And Neapolitan shakes.)
But now, as I am solidly in my forties, staring perimenopause right in the hot flashes, my metabolism both figuratively and literally out to lunch (who can say “no” to The Habit?), I am too tired to fight it anymore.
No amount of gym time, running, biking, swimming, or crunches can remove the koozie from around my six-pack abs that I know are in there somewhere. Instead I have chosen to accept my destiny:
I am a pear. And not even a firm, luscious one anymore. I am a soft, bruised, ripe pear with a side of cottage cheese thighs.
But rather than be down about my place in the fruit salad bowl of life, I have reframed how I will look at the 46 year-old pear-shaped body I can no longer deny.
Thanks to my active lifestyle and portion control (except with Oreos and Ranch dressing) I’m delicious and killing it in the Over 40 Pears (Non-Plastic Surgery Division)!
So join me you forty-something apples, you bananas, strawberries and pears! Join me in rising up and accepting the fruit we are destined to become!
And then let’s all throw marshmallows at those smug hour-glasses.
#PerfectPear #OwnIt