Do you know this woman?

I can tell you what she used to look like.

She used to match. Have a $250 haircut. Often manicured. Waxed, combed, clean.

You wouldn't see her without a touch of mascara at the very least. Some nice cheek gloss. Lip glass. All on expensively moisturized skin, recently facial-ed. 

Seriously, WHAT is she wearing? 

Are they Blundstone boots? With jeans and a sundress?

Has she got anything in that wardrobe with any shape?

Did she actually look at herself before she got in the car? (No, she didn't.)

And I mean, really. Where IS that novel? Where's the PhD? Where's the big job, the world changer, the mover and shaker, the girl most likely? And I'm sure that whole outfit is Kmart and Vinnies. (It is.)

Where's the girl who drank soy lattes and furiously scribbled verse? That's not really her, sitting by the swimming pool for another swimming lesson? Is that her in daggy pants at the school pick up? Pushing a trolley in the supermarket, putting on another load of laundry, dosing out junior panadol and breaking up an argument over who sits in what chair at the dinner table? 

And, really, you should see her house. Piles of washing. Toys all over the floor. The children skating across the floor on board books. I saw a guest actually pause once before sitting down on a chair that was evidently occupied by someone eating Weetbix earlier. 

You know once, she would have been able to tell you exactly how much she weighed. Now she knows how much all her children weigh and just that she intends to lose 10 kilograms. 

Which illustrates my point: she really has let herself go. 

She can't remember when she last had an undisturbed nights sleep but she is laughing out loud and loudly at the baby blowing raspberries. 

She hasn't worn a nice pair of heels in months, but her heart is bursting because she caught her children being randomly kind to each other. 

She has nothing to show for herself at the end of the day but she's whisking eggs in pure joy. 

She's blinking in amazement that her children can independently take themselves off to the toilet. 

She let herself go, let the self-imposed rules and restrictions, all the insecurities, the vacuous meaningless nonsensical self-centeredness go, and she found she was happier than she'd ever been in her whole life. 

xxx