Okay, straying away from the bodily autonomy/reproductive justice focus a little bit..
For those of you who don't know, Gabby (the parrot in my picture) died recently. This post is dedicated to her.
Some days, I beat myself up for being too ugly, or too short, or oddly proportioned, or for having an ugly face, or for having big feet, or for having frizzy hair, or for having a lot of scars. I'm sure a lot of you do the same.
But what's the point? What's the point in beating yourself up for the body that God gave you?
On days that I beat myself up for my assets that are less than perfect, I try to remember Gabby. I had a perch in my bathroom where I let her sit on while I was taking my morning shower. Her favorite thing about waking up was the fact that she got to sit in front of the bathroom mirror and stare at the most beautiful bird in the world for half an hour. She never beat herself up for not being skinny enough, or for having a bad feather day, or for having a little bald spot. She was beautiful, and she knew it! My other birds are like this, too. Don't they have amazing attitudes? Whenever I have a bad self esteem day, I'm going to strive to be like a bird.
Thank you for reminding us to be like birds, and love our selves as we are.
ReplyDeleteAww, I'm sorry to hear about her passing but what a wonderful bird she was. I always enjoyed hearing about her antics and will continue to enjoy hearing about any messages that she may have, to pass along, posthumously. THANK you for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteBabies and small children are like this too PCG. It's only when we learn about and are exposed to the evil in our world that we believe we are not good enough. You are beautiful and good enough in every way! Work hard at believing this about yourself and you will ultimately see the humanity in all of us -- even the unborn and pro-lifers.
ReplyDeleteRemember to stay focused and alert on Sunday!
May all who read this come to know, see and love the humanity of our Unborn. I ask this in the Name of the Father, and of The Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
ReplyDeleteAll praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster as we are all his creations.
ReplyDeleteAtta critter. You're started to come around.
ReplyDeleteCritter-
ReplyDeleteNow, is the Flying Spaghetti Monster made of vegetarian spaghetti? I love spaghetti, but it almost always has meat in it! :-p
Amazing post :)
ReplyDeleteI have been touched by his noodley appendage.
ReplyDeleteAntis really have no souls if they want to hijack the comments and lose the message by turning it back to abortion.
I wish I could be more like Gabby :)
ProChoiceGal- I hear you. I always have to special order sh!t when I go out to eat :P Good post.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that many birds of the same species look the same whether they're male or female. And if the females look different from the males, all of the females look the same and all of the males look the same. I think that's why they like to look at themselves, because they think it's another bird. I think that's why they're monogamous too. They can't find anything new in another bird that they don't already have with their mate.
ReplyDeleteI watched an interesting special about ostriches a few years ago. The female in the strongest ostrich couple lays her eggs first, and all the surrounding female ostriches lay their eggs in her nest. Then, the strongest male and female take turns sitting on the eggs. The female sits on the eggs during the day, because her brown feathers blend in with the ground, and the male goes for food. At night, they switch. The male lays on the eggs, because his feathers are black, and the female leaves to eat. But since all of the males look the same and all of the females look the same, they have to tell each other apart so that they can switch with the right ostrich. So the ostriches have a special dance they do to tell the other one, "It's me, honey! I can take over the brooding now!" It's very cute. Once the eggs hatch, the strongest ostrich couple raises all of the babies, even the ones that aren't theirs.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about birds being wonderful.
One very rare exception where female birds look different than male birds is with the eclectus.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ruffledfeathersaviary.com/eclectus2m2.jpg
The green one is a male and the red and blue one is a female. All females are red and blue and all males are green. I think that, when they were first discovered, scientists thought that they were two different species of birds. Interesting, huh?
And yeah, birds are monogamous. The cool thing about this is that a lot of the times, they choose a human to be their "mate". Gabby chose me as her life long love ♥
I came over from Abortioneers, and I wish I had found you and your blog sooner. You are amazingly perceptive and brilliant. I also really appreciate your honesty about eating disorders--I have a similar history. And I'm so, so sorry to hear about Gabby. <3
ReplyDeleteGlad to have you here, Desembarazarme. I LOVE Abortioneers. It's one of my favorite blogs.
ReplyDeleteI just happened to come across this post today from a link in another post. This is such an uplifting, great message! I definitely want to work on "being like a bird." :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked it, Nina. I'm still working on being like a bird. I've actually improved quite a bit since writing this post. phew!
ReplyDelete