Love
A powerful word that unites the world.
Defining love for myself, my husband and child is evolving into a sweetness and depth like a fine wine. Perhaps this love tastes like a vintage reserve that you sip and exhale, exclaiming, “yes, this is lovely!”
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
As a little girl I had a warped view of love. I desperately craved love and was not finding it from the source who I thought would offer it, namely my parents. Praise God that the Lord has redeemed that with my mom, but I can still speak to my personal thoughts and feelings as a child.
Back to that little girl…
From a young age (right after Kindergarten) I was actively aware that something was wrong with me, or so I thought. I started to put on weight and be “chubby” at age 6. Prior to this, I was thin, carefree, spirited, and happy! 1st Grade began with much insecurity. I can’t pinpoint each occurrence that would make that so, but suffice to say life was different for me.
Dwelling on those daily unkind thoughts, the idea that I didn’t look like everyone else and therefore didn’t feel worthy, continued to grow and balloon with each new birthday.
I loved to dance and my mom had put me into dance lessons around age 4. I loved dance class! Even so, my feelings toward dance became a vacillating love/hate type of relationship. While I LOVED to dance and LOVED music, when I walked into the dance studio, I was often overcome with thoughts like “why aren’t I skinny like the other girls?”
By 2nd, 3rd grade I had a chubby tummy and didn’t look the same way in costumes as my classmates. I adored dancing and would have given my right arm to look like my peers (intense feelings… I know).
Kids can be cruel and disrespectful and I am sure they picked up on my insecurities as the fat shaming at my public school increased every year until late High School. The boys, one in particular named Matt, was crueler then the girls. I remember coming home crying nearly every day. Feelings worthlessness, and not good enough permeated my mind often.
Unfortunately, when I returned home each day, I didn’t feel loved either. Often, my sister and I would return home and my dad would be asleep after our 1 hour bus ride home and my mom would still be at work or commuting.
So what did little Amanda do to cope? She ate. Nachos was my choice food drug most days. I piled up big plates of nachos that brought very temporary comfort (or so I thought). A distorted relationship with food and using it to cope began very early in my childhood.
Meanwhile, I continued to dance and through determination, grit, and hard work made the competition dance company. I was then able to perform at various places and prestigious competitions. I felt special for a little while.
At nearly 5 ft 8 and 160 lbs by 9th grade, I was always placed in the last row of dance routines, if I was lucky the middle back, but always the very back. I dreamed of having a solo during the group numbers like the smaller & thinner girls. That never really happened. Though I loved to dance, I lacked the confidence to ask a choreographer for a solo.
Below is one of my favorite lyrical routines from my Junior Year.
A favorite childhood teacher/choreographer, Miss Elizabeth, believed in me enough to give me a ballet solo during a group number during a year end recital at Barton & Williams. That was one of the highlights of my childhood! Miss Elizabeth was the gorgeous ballerina who had studied at Joffrey Ballet and I idolized her. The fact that she believed in me and chose me, I felt so special.
I wish I could have seen in myself what the Lord saw in me then, or even what Miss Elizabeth saw for that matter.
As I got older, I was at the dance studio nearly every night for 4 hours practicing various ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, and modern techniques and routines. Imagine a 150 lb. muscular girl staring in the mirror while wearing the same tights and leotards the 110 lb. girls were wearing and wondering why I didn’t look like them. Craving to look like them, have any other body than the one I had.
But God had his reasons, and He didn’t make me a stick (as my husband has affectionately told me the last 15 years we have been together). My curvy body and wider hips were made for many things including dancing and child bearing.
