Let me tell you one of my favorite things I've discovered about myself out west:
Some of the women I've met here are strong, adventurous, and they like to get dirty. I'm around so many women like this that it's become more normal for me to think about my body in this way-as something that can climb mountains, instead of something to put makeup on every day. I think back to the Southern women that raised me, and these days I don't think about how well their hair was done, but I think about the culture of women in the south that has created strong and able women, the grandmother that still plants a garden every single year and harvests its crops; the mother that runs 10 miles just because she can and who has been through more grief than a person should; the southern mom that raised 2 girls on her own and continues to the be the rope which connects the whole family together. These are strong women. This is how we should think of women.
In this age, social media is such a prevalent part of our every day lives, it is extremely hard to think about ourselves in this way. Just this morning, and what inspired this rant, I was scrolling through my favorite forum, Instagram, to see a girl I know from high school body shaming another female, with a picture saying "how can people think this is hot", or something along those lines, of a woman in a bikini. It threw me off so much, posted by a person who I enjoyed following because they work out and seem to be in it to get strong. I immediately unfollowed that negativity so I wouldn't open my mouth. Thank goodness for blogs!
Let's back track to see where my own thinking on this topic stems from: I was the kind of under developed girl in middle school that didn't sprout as quickly as the other girls; I was made fun of, like so many females are as they're growing up, for so many different reasons. We're too big, or we're too small, we're curvy or we're too much of a "tomboy". I was told I would "fill out", and one day I would look like Carrie Underwood and be able to wear great dresses. Family members didn't mean harm by doing this, but it subconsciously taught me to think about my body and my looks in terms of what the general world expected as "beautiful", and bring that to the forefront of how I should be viewed. One day I would grow, and then I would be beautiful, instead of one day, Brooke, you can climb mountains.
I finally hit a growth spurt when I was 15, but instead of "filling out", I started running and I got muscles, which led to stretch marks on my legs that have lead to years of embarrassment of wearing the bikini I want. But.....why? I could run a 5:30 mile, and I was embarrassed about what that did to my skin? This is not how we should view ourselves.
Now, here I am in Utah, growing and learning all of the things about myself that I wish I would have known as a high schooler. Things that I wish women would experience and think about themselves. Things that I hope my younger sisters realize before I did. I have rearranged my thinking.
I have stretch marks and cellulite on my legs(yes, we all do), and I don't have a flat stomach because I love wine and I love beer, and I will not stop eating toast, or my boyfriend's perfect version of sausage gravy and biscuits. But you know what else?
I can climb mountains. I can backpack in the woods in a weekend and hike 30 miles, and climb 13,500 feet to the tallest point in my state. I can snowboard all day in 3 feet of fresh powder, and go back and do it again the next day. I can run 2 hours on a mountain trail and not bat an eye. I can do these things because I am strong, and these are the things about myself that I try to put into focus. I don't wear makeup everyday, and it no longer bothers me. It frees me. I don't think about having mascara when I wander off in the woods(at some point, yes, that too was me). I don't have the perfect Instagram figure, but I love the shapes of the mountains in front of me.
Don't get me wrong, I love dressing up, I love painting my lips red. But these things are not my focus as a woman. Because of the confidence I've found in myself through nature, I've grown to love myself, and to love all women's bodies and shapes, not shame them. It has given me a confidence that I've never experienced before. I love women's courage, their creativity, their bravery to walk in the woods. This is the message I feel needs to be shared. Women are not too big or too thin or too much of this or that. We need to encourage women, and remind them that how they think of themselves is the only important thing, in how they look. Instead of "I wish I had your legs", why not, I love your kindness, or I love your sense of humor. Body shaming is never ok, so lets change it and celebrate women together. All women. This world is bigger than us, the trees and the mountains and the animals that roam here. We need to take the time to appreciate these things, and in that we can find a lot of ourselves along the way-the kindness, the confidence, and the true beauty of our own lives that seem to be missing. Find what makes you confident in yourself. Let that be your focus, and share it.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
First Steps, The Woods that made me
First post, here we go!
Starting this blog is a great way for me to share the adventure that has been my life, thus far. Someone recently reached out to me, and reminded me of where I'm from-a small town, in a small place, that a lot of people have never heard of(short of Cabbage Patch doll references) or visited. They pointed out to me that while the people around me grew to lead fulfilling lives, it's usually within a 30-50 mile radius of where they were born and raised. I envy these people.
Something in me has always craved adventure. Something in me has always pushed me to seek out whatever I can find in the world that is new, exciting, and fills my soul with joy-constantly in the pursuit of nature, knowledge, and happiness. I envy the people that will always scrunch their toes up in the dirt they first walked in, early in life, because I miss the smell of that same Georgia dirt, the stain of red clay on my feet. For me, I'll always be coming home to that, finding my place, while I explore and find where else my feet can go.
The decision to move West in my mid twenties came with excitement, anxiety, fear, and the ultimate sense of adventure. I'm a family gal, and that was the most difficult part for me, but I'll share with you the advice that I was lucky enough to receive from my quiet, veteran marine, cigar smoking grandpa. We sat on my Mom's front porch, sipping wine and staring up at the Georgia night sky while he puffed on a cigar that encompasses my memories of growing up around him. He told me, "Brooke, one thing that you'll always need to remember, is to never forget to look at the stars. You'll miss this place, you'll miss your family, but we are all looking up at the same night sky, all staring up at the same stars. Whenever you miss home, just know it's really not that far away."
That single moment gave me the confidence to begin my adventure....and so we went! My mom, my wolf girl Sookie, and myself packed up in my Xterra and headed out west. My dad and stepmom were kind enough to bring me my belongings in a U-haul a month later(and have their own westward adventure).
My mom, dog and I saw every inch of the country that leads from Georgia to Utah. We went through the forests in Kentucky, to the plains of Missouri that I thought would never end. We stopped and I got to see where my mom grew up in Missouri, in little St. Joe, already exploring a world new to me. We saw strange structures on the sides of the highways in Wyoming(apparently to keep snow drifts at bay, I later found out!), where speed limits (apparently) don't exist. It was easy to imagine the cowboys and settlers that made their way west, and how they must have felt with all that sky around, compared to the dense forests in the mountains where I grew up; how they must have felt seeing the gigantic, wild, calm bison that roam the west for the first time just like my Mom and I saw them for the first time in their open spaces.
Finally, we crossed over in to Utah, where the scenery took on a wild explosion of colors. I came to Utah in October, after all. We sat in silence and awe, staring up at the cliffside, the mountains, the deep reds and golds that accompany Utah in the fall, and I was in my new "home".
There's a bit more to the story, but we can save that for another day. The most meaningful lesson I was able to learn from leaving a steady, fun job and my entire family, the mountains of north Georgia that make up a part of my soul, is that sometimes we need to make our own path. We've got to roam wild in the great wilderness that was created for us, and explore the wildness within ourselves.
Starting this blog is a great way for me to share the adventure that has been my life, thus far. Someone recently reached out to me, and reminded me of where I'm from-a small town, in a small place, that a lot of people have never heard of(short of Cabbage Patch doll references) or visited. They pointed out to me that while the people around me grew to lead fulfilling lives, it's usually within a 30-50 mile radius of where they were born and raised. I envy these people.
Something in me has always craved adventure. Something in me has always pushed me to seek out whatever I can find in the world that is new, exciting, and fills my soul with joy-constantly in the pursuit of nature, knowledge, and happiness. I envy the people that will always scrunch their toes up in the dirt they first walked in, early in life, because I miss the smell of that same Georgia dirt, the stain of red clay on my feet. For me, I'll always be coming home to that, finding my place, while I explore and find where else my feet can go.
The decision to move West in my mid twenties came with excitement, anxiety, fear, and the ultimate sense of adventure. I'm a family gal, and that was the most difficult part for me, but I'll share with you the advice that I was lucky enough to receive from my quiet, veteran marine, cigar smoking grandpa. We sat on my Mom's front porch, sipping wine and staring up at the Georgia night sky while he puffed on a cigar that encompasses my memories of growing up around him. He told me, "Brooke, one thing that you'll always need to remember, is to never forget to look at the stars. You'll miss this place, you'll miss your family, but we are all looking up at the same night sky, all staring up at the same stars. Whenever you miss home, just know it's really not that far away."
That single moment gave me the confidence to begin my adventure....and so we went! My mom, my wolf girl Sookie, and myself packed up in my Xterra and headed out west. My dad and stepmom were kind enough to bring me my belongings in a U-haul a month later(and have their own westward adventure).
My mom, dog and I saw every inch of the country that leads from Georgia to Utah. We went through the forests in Kentucky, to the plains of Missouri that I thought would never end. We stopped and I got to see where my mom grew up in Missouri, in little St. Joe, already exploring a world new to me. We saw strange structures on the sides of the highways in Wyoming(apparently to keep snow drifts at bay, I later found out!), where speed limits (apparently) don't exist. It was easy to imagine the cowboys and settlers that made their way west, and how they must have felt with all that sky around, compared to the dense forests in the mountains where I grew up; how they must have felt seeing the gigantic, wild, calm bison that roam the west for the first time just like my Mom and I saw them for the first time in their open spaces.
Finally, we crossed over in to Utah, where the scenery took on a wild explosion of colors. I came to Utah in October, after all. We sat in silence and awe, staring up at the cliffside, the mountains, the deep reds and golds that accompany Utah in the fall, and I was in my new "home".
There's a bit more to the story, but we can save that for another day. The most meaningful lesson I was able to learn from leaving a steady, fun job and my entire family, the mountains of north Georgia that make up a part of my soul, is that sometimes we need to make our own path. We've got to roam wild in the great wilderness that was created for us, and explore the wildness within ourselves.
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