Total midlife crisis?

No, I don't think so.

It's more about me exploring things, letting go of long-held conventional thoughts, looking within and finding what I think and believe.

I don't feel bound by anything anymore.

So, I did this. It may adorn my face for the rest of my life; it may stay a couple of months. (Hope it's longer. I paid $55 for this baby!)

Maybe this is just my own symbolic gesture of being free.

I heart my body

I didn't always used to heart my body.

In fact, I hated it.

As a child I couldn't have cared less. See, the fact that I had achondroplasia meant nothing to me. Sure, I was littler than everyone else my age. Most times I was littler than kids younger than me; but I could play and run and ride my bike and swim and climb trees and do pretty much everything that kids did at that age back in the 70's. God they were great times!

But then the teenage years hit, and hormones were let loose and there were changes in my body. And those changes were causing someone who was remaining the height of a 7 year old for the rest of her life, to develop the chest, hips and thighs of a woman.

And although I was in no way fat, to me it LOOKED fat, because all that womanliness on thighs that were less than 30cm long...well...it looks bigger than it really is.

Sometimes there were insensitive things said by people who I loved and admired:

"Little people shouldn't wear bikinis."
"Little people don't look good with long hair."
"You have short, fat feet."
"I'd be worried if a tall man/boy showed an interest in you because I'd wonder what they were after."
"Don't worry Leisa. Your brothers and sisters might beat you in height but you'll beat them in width."

So that left me with the impression that I was a freak, ugly, fat & not worthy of an "average" statured persons love - or anyone's really.

As a result I developed a pretty intense eating disorder, characterized by restricting what I ate, purging and intensive exercise. I continued this even as a young mother. My weight dropped to a tiny 31kg, my periods ceased...and I wasn't happy, because the need to be super skinny consumed my every waking moment.

I don't know what made me turn the corner. All I knew was that I couldn't go on like that anymore...and I wanted another baby. So I sought help. I talked to a professional. She wasn't the greatest counsellor in the world, but she helped.

And I began to realize that I was trying to change proportions that could never be changed. I would always look as though I "have junk in my trunk" because I have the stocky build of a person with achondroplasia...and that won't change.

Now, at the age of 45 I can honestly say that I heart my body. I am 36-37 kg - just where I should be. I am strong. I am healthy. I have taken up jogging and I just love it because it's "my thing". Through jogging my cardio fitness has improved so much, I am lean, I am strong.

I have the soft belly of a woman who has had the wonderful experience of carrying and growing four beautiful people. I love my belly with it's softness, pliability and the silvery stretch marks that serve as a reminder of my growing babies.

I watch my face as time carves it's lines and I see my skin bearing similar lines that adorn the faces of my beautiful parents...the two people I admire most on this earth. Although the aging process is confronting at times I am grateful that I have lived long enough to have these lines. I smile and watch my face crinkle and hope that the lines I bear when I'm an old, old lady are the deep smile lines of someone who has laughed and loved and lived.

I still have "junk in my trunk" but I love it. I am alive, strong, healthy. My body does everything I need it to do and I reward it by nurturing it with good food, an appropriate amount of exercise, plenty of sleep and relaxation. I keep my hair the way I want to - it's been super long and looked great. At the moment it's super short and looks great too. I wear what makes me feel good, regardless. This summer I'm going to be in a black bikini simply because I heart my body and wearing one makes me feel good, womanly and sexy. Maybe I'll still be wearing bikinis for another 20 years! Who knows?

But one thing I do know is that I now love my body, my little, achondroplastic body. I live in it and it's served me well. I'm proud of it. It may have taken 40 years to get to this place, but I'm here now and it's a wonderful place to be.

The pull of home.

As I headed down the South Gippsland Highway yesterday I felt the old, familiar tug of my heart that tells me I'm going home. Past the rolling green hills, through the little townships that are so pretty with their huge flower plots in the middle of the road and their sweet little shops and houses, around the windy roads through lush, green bush. The roads are so familiar, even though I haven't driven myself very often. I remember riding them with my family, my Dad at the wheel. Still, yesterday I felt sure of the way; my heart being the navigator. This was the country I was born in, the places my brothers and I explored, the place that my heart longs for and has done for so long. Thirty four years of longing...

And it's the place to which my parents are returning. I think they've always longed for it too. I received news on Thursday that they had bought a fully furnished little cottage in McLoughlin's Beach - 20 minutes out of Yarram, where they both grew up, went to school, worked, got married and had the first five of their seven children. They're going back home and I haven't seen them so excited for a very long time. Yarram will be their closest town. They will do their grocery shopping there, go to church there. I'm so happy for them.

I visited them yesterday down in Port Welshpool where they are preparing my Nanna's house (Dad's mother, who died 14 years ago) for sale. It is the right decision. The house would need too much work for my parents to live in. Over the 14 years that my Nans defacto was living there he allowed it to disintegrate to an apalling state. The bathroom wasn't cleaned one so the walls were black with mould, the soap scum in the shower was so thick that Dad had to scrape it off with a paint scraper. And the junk! Nan was a terrible hoarder. Some of the things would have been quite valuable at some stage, but things haven't been kept well and they've been allowed to rust and rot and break till there's no point keeping them. Sad really.

Nans house is a mystery to me. It stirs memories that I can neither understand nor make sense of. They come from somewhere dark where I think the little me of back then filed them away so I wouldn't have to think of them. Memories of people I choose not to think of too much, names I'd rather not remember, a dark night with a howling wind. I can't make sense of the memories, so I choose not to. Always have. I think it's better this way.

I took Mum and Dad for a drive into Port Albert. I wanted to see the boats and the jetty, another place that holds golden memories. It was beautiful. We ran into my Dad's brother Bill, who we found dozing in his car, watching the water & the boats. My Uncle Bill is a fisherman, always lived boats and fishing and the ocean. He told us that he's been having trouble sleeping, so he heads down to the jetty to watch the sea & the boats and it soothes him to sleep. The pull of the ocean is strong.

We drove into Yarram and passed a house that my Nanna's best friend owned. My mother, my brothers and sisters and I stayed there for a week once while the woman was on holidays. Yesterday I told Mum, "There were ghosts in that house." She kind of scoffed at it, but I know it to be true. Children know these things. My Nanna's friend had lost two sons quite tragically. All of us kids could feel them in the house. It was a sad house.

I'm sure that one day the pull of the ocean and the rolling green hills will take me back there again. The yearning has always been there, since I was eleven years old and we moved here. I'm looking forward to it. No plans as yet but somehow I know that I'll be there one day. My parents look content and happy. Dad looks flat out excited. The stories just poured from him yesterday and the hope was once again shining in his eyes.

Another golden day.