Then and Now, Both Worth Celebrating

Today, as my son turns eleven, my heart feels full — full of love, full of awe, full of disbelief at how quickly the years have flown. It feels like only yesterday I was cradling him for the first time. It's a bittersweet reminder of how much life has shifted, stretched, and shaped us both.

As I celebrate him, I notice some quieter, harder feelings stirring in the recesses of my mind. I find myself thinking about who I was before he was born — leaner, stronger, more lit up with a kind of youthful energy. I remember her, that younger version of me, and soon the clouds of judgment begin to gather.

Why don't I look the same way? Why don't I feel the same way? What have I done wrong?
Very soon, I am filled with regret and guilt about the choices I've made over the years around food, exercise, and self-care — choices that, in my opinion, weren’t enough to preserve my health.

According to today's common visualization and promotion of health — often tied to physical thinness and weight loss — it’s easy for me to judge and chastise where I am now. But I have promised myself that I would walk this journey towards better health with kindness. So I put aside the self-criticism and step back.  I zoom out and try to see the bigger picture.

These past eleven years have been full — raising my son, moving to a different city, facing financial hardships, managing a household, holding onto relationships, birthing my little daughter, battling depression, juggling a career, just to name a few. All this while, I have been meeting the demands of life as best I could. My body, even as it changed, carried me through it all.  It became everything I needed it to be to support my well-being. If anything, it deserves gratitude, not shame.

Today, I want to acknowledge and honor both realities without measuring them against each other:

The younger, healthier version of me...
And myself today — the woman who dared to walk through the vagaries of life.
I'm proud of them both.

My son's birthday feels like a kind of rebirth for me too — a reminder that I, too, have grown.  And though I may look & feel different, though the years have left their imprints on me, I am no less worthy of celebration.

Today, I celebrate myself too.
I honor my body and my experience of life.
This is where I am — and it's enough.

Tomorrow, I will walk one step further toward health — health as I define it today - a state of fullness, one not measured by the reflection in a mirror, but by the unseen things that matter the most.

As I sign off, I remind myself: There is plenty of room for care, for growth, for health — and it starts with kindness, not criticism. I am not the "before" or the "after." I am the now.