I think most people do a bit of idle Facebooking (Yes.  I did just make that word up.) in the mornings, just to see what friends and family got up to overnight. While scrolling through my feed one morning not long ago, dropping a "like" here, and a random comment there, I came across a meme featuring a large woman riding a bike, clearly competing in an athletic competition, seriously intent, and completely into what she was doing.  The wording on the picture was about encouraging people more than we criticize, which was all well and good, but what struck me most about this picture was the woman's obvious commitment to what she was doing.  Her focus and dedication absolutely moved me.  I wondered about her journey, how she got there, and honestly, how I could get there. 

Turns out the woman in the picture runs a website for plus-sized female athletes, featuring them in all of their triumphs and trials. Me being a plus-sized woman who wants to get more seriously into biking and hiking, but have always been rather intimidated both by my size and my clumsiness, was intrigued.  As I read article after story after blog post about these remarkable female athletes, pursuing their goals without regard to anyone else's preconceived notions of what they should be, I started to realize that I am probably my own biggest critic when it comes to my fitness goals. (Well, okay that and whenever I decide to exercise after work on a regular basis, my son suddenly finds things to do at night so he can't possibly watch his sister while I go to the gym/track/whathaveyou, doesn't really help either, but I digress.) I am also far from alone in this ongoing self negating.

The comments on most articles about any woman that is not very small or thin bear me out on this.  Although there are plenty of comments from men, which is almost to be expected, the comments from women range from hateful (the usual amount of shaming comments) to heartbreaking.  The number of women that hate themselves, and anyone else for that matter, for not conforming to an image very few people can meet has reached epidemic proportions.  Dear GOD, don't let it be an article or post about self acceptance.  If a man between the ages of 17 - 35 can't get a boner by looking at your picture, you had better not even THINK about self acceptance.  All of this will be hidden underneath a layer of barely concealed contempt, dressed in snark, and condescendingly labeled "concern for your health".

What so many of these keyboard critics don't realize is that all of the most important things about a person's life start with their perception of themselves.  Anything that starts with self hatred is destined to end in failure, and self hatred starts where inability to accept that not everyone is going to look exactly alike begins.  This is not to say that everyone shouldn't strive to be the best possible version of themselves, so much as it is reminding them that no two people are meant to look alike, and to decide for themselves what that best person looks like.  Of course there are certain industries that thrive on personal insecurity; our job is to develop a healthy enough sense of self to let these industries cater to those they may.  We can always opt out of the get thin quick schemes and harmful nonsense diet peddling.

Loving yourself first means seeking out and prioritizing what's RIGHT about yourself, rather than obsessing over flaws.  I mean your real flaws, as decided by YOU, not dictated by a popular media that has an agenda, and a product to sell.  Learning to love yourself BEFORE you begin to make changes puts you in the right mindset to stick to whatever plans you make to  change what you feel needs changing, be it looks, finances, career or location.  Everyone has at least one thing about themselves worth loving; if you don't know what that is, there are probably one too many people in your life whose favorite form of entertainment is making sure they let other people know precisely what is wrong with them, never mind the fact that their gleeful negativity is the largest part of the problem. But I digress.

By developing a healthier attitude towards yourself, you improve your outlook on most other aspects of your life, which in turn gives you the proper foundation for dealing with whatever comes your way after that.  People that love themselves first develop a sort of resilience that carries them through failures, disappointments and thornier issues, all the way out to creating better habits, completed goals, and triumph.

Like that woman in the picture, who has completed marathons, triathlons, and is an avid competitor in sports.  None of this could have been done without first loving herself enough to ignore the negativity, and pursue what SHE was interested in. I've always strived to be more of an encourager.  It's nice to know that my thinking goes along the correct lines.

I want to be like her when I grow up.

Eleven is a magical age.  You have hit the sweet spot where you are not a little kid, but you are not yet a full on teenager, so you have license to indulge in the slightly silly for just a little while longer, while slowly trying on the image of the young adult.  Eleven is a time of transition, from the safe routine of elementary school, to the busy uncertainty of middle school, which prepares you for the race that will be high school and college.  You become more aware of your emotions, as you begin to understand more of what's going on in the world around you, and your reactions start to take on an adult complexity.

I was reminded of this recently when my daughter and I went to see the movie "Inside Out", which details the emotional inner workings of an 11 year old girl after her family makes a major transition, moving from suburban Minnesota to San Francisco.  Up until that point, while I realized that my daughter had been through quite a bit in her short 11 years, I had completely forgotten how her processing methods themselves might be changing, from that of a child  to those of a young adult, while all of these things were going on.

Talking with both kids after watching the movie, I started to notice that all of us had major change going on in out lives at the age of eleven.  Changes that eventually shaped our pursuits, as well as out overall outlook on life.

At the age of eleven, my son was dragged along with me as we experienced the functional homelessness of living first with my then boyfriend (who eventually became my daughter's father), then with my sister.  As with most people living in overcrowded situations, tensions abounded, and no matter how much I tried to shield him from it, he couldn't help but noticed the strained silences from the adults around him.  Still struggling with ADHD, one day, his medication disappeared, never to be seen again.  This would start the longest, worst period of school for him, the time when he knew what he needed to do, but did not know how to stay focused enough to do it.

He became a big brother at the age of eleven. I remember him being woken up in the middle of the night, and told to throw on sweatpants, and pile into the car while I drove myself to the hospital.  I recall him pushing my wheelchair into the waiting room, and waiting with me for whatever my next instructions were to be.  I also remember the fascinated look on his face when he met his little sister for the first time, marveling out loud about how tiny she was.

He also resumed taking capoeira, a martial art he had started at the Lutheran school he had attended, and he also started cooking, as he was finally tall enough to see completely over the stove.  With capoeira, he would form friendships and mentor relationships that he still has to this day, and he eventually became such a good cook, he is in the process of pursuing it as a vocation.

My daughter only turned 11 in January of this year, but she has already experienced having to pack and move quickly from a place we had lived since she was a toddler.  She has experienced the death of a very young friend that she saw and played with daily.  She has dealt with adults that had no issues with treating her like a stereotype rather than an individual. She has experienced peer racism, sexism, and class-ism, and had to figure out how to NOT respond to any of these things, as she has unfortunately found out that any response to provocation will likely get her into more trouble that  those doing the provoking.  Such is the life of the bullied.

She has also discovered a love of learning, especially math and science subjects, and has a great deal of fun with the engineering kits created by GoldieBlox.  She has just completed her third trip to a week long camp conducted by the Lutheran church, and while she doesn't always enjoy her cabin mates, she absolutely LOVES the experience of going to camp: the hiking, swimming, sleeping outside, and simply getting out of the city, and around different people, for a little while. Soon, she will be part of two mixed generation choirs, and with one has performed as both a singer and a dancer for well over a year.

At the age of eleven, my older sister and I were in a state of flux.  Our mother and younger sister were living in Hawaii, our father was here in Los Angeles, but not living in a big enough place to care for the two of us, so we were living with his cousin.  I was in my final year of elementary school, and completely unaware of how to deal with my unusual personality.  Becoming a nerd was not cool in 1981, and my appreciation for, well, EVERYTHING, was not looked upon anything close to favorably.

In the middle of all of this, I received my very first Bible from the husband of the cousin we were living with.  This was in response to my complaints about the pew bibles at his church, and I treasured that small white bible with my name written on it in gold letters until it was lost in storage 9 years ago.  One of the sons in this family introduced my sister and I to rock and roll, via local radio station KROQ, often by acting out the lyrics to some of the songs for our amusement.  I've since taught the movements to at least two of those songs to my own children, which they find hilarious.  It was also during this time that I made my first halting attempts at writing at the suggestion of this same cousin, who suggested that I try to write down my feelings about everything that I was going through at the time.  After seeing a little poetry, and a few paragraphs, she then uttered the magic words:  "You are actually pretty good at this.  You should keep this up."

I sit here contemplating this as, eleven years after the birth of my daughter, my son prepares to leave the nest.  My daughter is losing her longest, closest friend, and I feel like I am losing the longest, hardest job I've ever had. We are both happy for him, of course, and in our own little way, will miss him.  But if eleven is our family's number for changes and transitions, then now is the time for him to start moving on.  It will be interesting to see what the next eleven years will bring.