An old roommate recently posted a status update on Facebook. For those who aren’t part of the glorious timesuck that is FB, status updates are where you tell your friends how or what you’re doing. You complete the sentence Stephanie is [ ] or in this case Gina is [ ], thus opening the window into your state of mind just a crack.
Well, yesterday, Gina’s update was “Gina is [wondering where her butt went.]”
It made me smile because even without having seen her recently I think I know what happened: Gina is likely experiencing that bizarre redistribution of body mass that often occurs after childbirth or as a matter of course as you get older. Her butt, presumably once distinct from her legs and perhaps high and rounded (I actually don’t remember the specifics of her butt), has flattened out. If her waist has thickened (as I’m sure it has, since she, like I, has young twins) then that whole waist/hip/flank/butt corridor is a bit squarer, and less hourglassy than it was pre-kiddies. [Update: Gina has since confirmed that this is precisely what happenend.]
I am experiencing just that phenomenon. Baby weight is at least theoretically possible to lose. Formerly-Had-a-Butt Syndrome is exponentially harder, if not impossible to correct. There are some body parts that aren’t where they used to be (many breasts, for instance, have moved south over the years,) but you can still locate them should you have the need. When you lose your ass, by contrast, you may as well hold a funeral for it because it’s not coming back.
You know how when a loved one dies, it’s comforting to think of him or her in a better place, such as heaven if you’re religious or a chocolate factory or Woodbury Commons, if you’re me? I’ve decided to think about my butt as having gone on to a better place, a place where a butt can be truly happy, or at least contented. My butt is probably somewhere delightful with my other beloved body parts that have decided to secede from the rest of my body.
I like to think my butt is someplace soft and padded, where all pants contain at least 4 percent Spandex and no perverted old men grope you on the subway. There are no squats or leg-lifts to torture you, and cellulite is considered a mark of true beauty (the more cottage cheesy dimples, the better!) Perhaps my butt is with Gina’s, sipping umbrella drinks and enjoying a well-deserved retirement after 40-plus years of being sat on, eyed judgmentally in 3-way mirrors, being made to follow subserviently behind me like Japanese women walked behind their husbands until relatively recently.
No, my butt is in a better place, and I hope yours is, too.
Photo by: lornapips, CC Licensed
December 30, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I plan to hold a memorial service for mine. I’m thinking of burning my Cosabellas* and tossing the ashes to the wind. And because I believe my butt has gone to a happy place where it no longer needs to count calories, I will drink something fattening in salute.
(*I like Hanky Pankys better anyway.)
December 31, 2008 at 1:53 am
Steph, you are great…:-) your ironic description of the secession of your butt from you is simply wonderful, I haven’t got this problem notwithstanding my three children but I can imagine how you and your friend Gina feel about it…:-) an enormous CHOCOKISS to you and Gina 🙂 from Sicily
December 31, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I suffer from the opposite affliction, I’ve never been in fear of losing any of my substantial ass — but it’s good to know that someday I might actually miss it and appreciate all the rousing renditions of “Baby Got Back” sung to me in parking lots; men stopping me on the street to discuss my “hip hop booty” until I felt the need to back away from them and, now that I’m past 35, the body part that seems to need more support than my upper half.
But after reading these longing letters to butts past, I have a new appreciation for my ass’s ability to open doors, support small children, and hold my pants up without ever needing a belt. Thanks, ladies, for giving me a new appreciation for the part that I’ve always tried to hide — I’m off to don my tightest jeans and take the cheeks out for a spin!
December 31, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I think we need to be careful here to differentiate between asses that are having boundary issues, and asses that are missing. My father, known widely as No-Ass Redfield, suffers from this ass-less condition, and has been a laughing stock all his life (ok, all my life) for putting a towel on his bicycle seat, having his jeans look funny, etc. and etc.
December 31, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Breasts that have, as you say, “moved south over the years” are no less entrancing for their peregrinations. Gravitational compliance over time is a touchstone of “natural” beauty… this truism holds for both anterior and posterior appendages…
December 31, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Alan B is my new hero.
January 1, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Happy New Year from one formerly to another.