Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

"You're sexy again!"

The other evening, I took the kids to the pool. A Filipina friend of mine was there. I hadn't seen her for a few months, and the first thing she said when she saw me was, "You're sexy again!"

I'm considering making "you're sexy again!" my new go-to phrase for telling someone they look great/have lost weight/etc. Honestly, it was great to hear that sentiment in such enthusiastic terms. I've been working really hard on exercise for the last 3.5 months, and eating + exercise for the last two months. The results are sometimes slow in coming, but now, thanks to my friend and her honesty, I know they ARE coming.

It has been harder this time around to get back to my normal, pre-baby self. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I had to focus on my thesis first thing after giving birth, rather than exercising. It was as if I woke up one day after graduating and realized that my baby was four months old and I was still lots of pounds away from what I consider to be my true self. I know that post-baby body changes are normal, but I no longer felt at home in my own skin. I looked at myself in pictures or in the mirror and thought, "that is not me."

I'm much, much closer to my true weight now, and I'm feeling so much more at ease with my body as a result. I'm still hanging on to some extra poundage, but hey, at least I'm sexy again.

Frozen in Arabic

May 2014 books