So you’re sitting there at the computer, doing whatever it is you do, and you get an email: “So-and-so tagged you in a photo on Facebook.” Just before you click the See Photo link, what goes through your mind? Do I look good? Do I look bad? Do I look… fat?
After the marathon, a couple of friends uploaded photos of me to Facebook, including this one:
I cringed when I saw it. (I’m cringing now!) The fat rolls… the jiggly bits… the double chin. Ugh. Surely I could not allow this photo to remain on the internet for all the world to see. The fear ran through my heart. If I left it up there, then everyone would know that I was fat. They would know that I have rolls and jiggly bits and a double chin. They would know I am fat.
Okay, wait a minute. I am fat. So this photo is an accurate representation of my body. It’s not a very flattering picture, to be sure, but it’s accurate. It’s me, in that moment, a few steps from the finish line. That’s what my body looked like on race day. (That’s what it looks like today, although it’s not currently in form-fitting workout clothes.) So what is there to be afraid of? I realized it would be very un-BFD of me to ask my friend to take it down. So I took a deep breath, added a comment, and went on with my life.
The next day, another friend posted a whole slew of photos! Me, in action, coming down that last stretch before the blessed finish line. She didn’t tag me in the photos, so I don’t know if any of my friends saw them. But I’m going to show you to them here:
I’ve looked at these pictures quite a lot over the past few days. Now, I’d love to tell you that I’ve come to like them, but that’s not true. When I look at them, I feel shame and embarrassment, and a lifetime of frustration that I can’t have a flat stomach and thin arms and a well-defined jawline. But I also know that is not my body lot in life, and hiding these pictures from the world doesn’t change that. I can delete the pictures, or I can accept them as a reflection of my physical self – which is only a part of who I am as a whole.
One final note: I’m not showing you these pictures so you’ll post a comment saying that I look great, or to stop being so hard on myself. This isn’t about garnering sympathy or fishing for compliments. It’s about honesty, about embracing my body as it is… and it’s about facing fear. It’s about the truth that a couple of unflattering pictures are really nothing to be afraid of, in the grand scheme of things. They’re just pictures. They capture a moment in time, a body in the moment and in motion.
Have you ever untagged yourself or deleted an unflattering picture from the internet? What were you afraid of?
