an ode to my thighs

My thighs were never my favorite part of me. To be honest I never really had a favorite part of me. I have good cheekbones. Big eyes with yellow circles in the middle. I guess having long legs is a plus but my body and I were never on the most comfortable of terms. My thighs were a part I've always quietly criticized. Too flabby, too big. Too many dimples dotting the surface. Even when I was painfully too thin, my thighs never got that way. 

Aging only adds to the mix. Dimples deeper, flab saggier. Thick purple veins streak across the backs of my legs. Age spots, which my dermatologist can remove for a fee, slowly grow. And now, as if all that weren't enough, there are wrinkles. I stopped wearing shorts when I bent down to pick something up and saw my legs from that vantage point. Doing a down dog in yoga and catching a glimpse threw me off for an entire class. 

Sigh. My thighs are in a downward cycle without having ever reaching a place I was happy with. 

But then I started thinking about it differently. My thighs are strong. I can walk up flights and flights of stairs. Hold complicated balancing poses. My lap still occasionally holds children and very often holds dogs. I am grateful to walk, to move, for balance, for comfort in my body. It's now not being disappointed in how they look, it's being grateful that they're so solid and strong. 

Thigh gratitude. I'm glad to have found this place.