Deep conversations.

I love talking with my husband. He is really brilliant guy and we can have some really meaningful, quite philosophical  chats.
Anyway we talked about our previous marriages, both ended not so well, as you can gather and the conclusion was that trying to live your life by someone else's expectations is like wearing shoes that don't fit.   You can do it for a while, but sooner or later it will hurt. And to save yourself you will have to remove what is causing pain.

Plus-size? models

By accident stumbled across an interview with Laura Wells (you can watch it here) which was followed by a lengthy discussion with my Husband about fashion and models, and clothing sizes.
I was trying to remember when this obsession with super-skinny girls had started, and I have a problem to pin-point it. Because when I first started to look at fashion the top models were Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer. Slim, I grant you that, but far cry from girls who look like they just survived a concentration camp. If you have any doubts google some historic pictures from the WWII. Resemblance is shocking. I think that it was late 90s, early 2000 when this worrying trend took hold. I know that the body image have been changing for at least 6 decades and some designers were quoted to be saying that they want walking coat hangers. I know as well that eating disorders have more to do with being control freek than just a body image per se. But as a mother of a girl I cannot welcome enough this new legislation regarding fashion industry passed by France. I just hope it will go further. I hope we will get back to showing real people in decent clothes, girls in average sizes like 14, 16 and stop calling them plus-sized. And it's not only because we have population which goes toward obesity. Marilyn Monroe would be classed as overweight now for goodness sake. Health is not only about BMI, it's about overall well being. Most of British Rugby team by the measures of BMI can be cast as obese. Because their weight to height ratio is very high due to muscle mass. But no one can argue against that they are fit and healthy.
So if majority of population is much larger than size 0, why do fashion industry force us to look at super-skinny models as a ideal beauty? Why Laura Wells and other so called plus-size models such an novelty. Why can't we see those groundbreaking designs on people who look like us? It would save a lot of anxiety when we go to shops and try to fit in them only to see that cellulite is spilling out and it looks gross.  Or maybe it's too difficult for them to apply their art to actual real people.
And what about people who are real plus-size (lets say above 20 as to that much you can get stuff on the high street), what they are left with? Nothing on the high street and absolute zilch from high end designers. Oh, ok I forgot about the Wallis, but that is expensive. 30-40 years ago they would be able to go to local seamstress and get clothes made to measure for relatively small money. Clothes that would actually fit and flatter them. Now they would have to win in lottery to be able to afford that. So going to any town centre in UK you can see lots of people who are obese in tracksuit bottoms and ill fitting tops putting their rolls on shame for all to see. Mainly because they don't have an alternative. There isn't affordable service for big people where they could be told how to dress better. And there is this vicious circle of people being fat, feeling low about themselves, not doing anything to change it because they are already down, so they eat some more comfort food and get even bigger. And then they look at glossy magazines and see it's hopeless, they will never achieve this look so why bother. Yesterday I seen a girl who was not much bigger than me, but she looked huge. I had to explain to my husband that if I put on this too tight t-shirt and tracksuits I would look twice the size I am. Image is a lot about how you carry  yourself, what you wear, do you have a clean hair. I have learned long ago, that even the biggest arse looks smaller in mediocre tailored skirt than in best trousers. Especially if you put a little heel on. I believe that most of the people wants to look good. They just need a chance. In good quality, affordable outfits they might just get enough energy to change their eating habits and slim down.
Fashion industry is not only guilty of fueling up eating disorders in young people by promoting unhealthy "beauty" ideal, is as well guilty of neglecting huge population of people who don't fit in their standard size minds. And we all would do well by remembering that everyone can get fat. Sometimes our bodies can go out of control (like when thyroid gives up) and we could balloon to size 26 in 2 months. Seen it first hand.

Good and bad parenting.

Did I mention somewhere that I work as an interpreter? No, well it happens.
My line of work is putting me in touch with a lot of peoples misery. I do mainly medical stuff, sometimes Job Centers out of work assessments, so not a happy bunnies. But today I seen a follow up from something I did on occasion a year ago. A mental health case. I clearly remember this girl being in horrible state, and seeing her today - it's a different person. It just shows that with right help, meds and therapy lives can be saved. She was so depressed a year ago that was unable to talk. Today she was much stronger and on a good way to recovery.
And every time I have a mental health case it's staggering how much people get damaged by wrong upbringing.  By parents who are possibly not fit to look after a hamster, not only another human being. How fragile we humans are. Especially as a children. Children should be loved and cherished. I know as a parent how difficult it can be when your personal little monster drives you up the wall, but love for this monster can dig up levels of patience you had no idea existed. It is very difficult to accept the child as a separate person, because lets face it we try to bring them up in a certain way, the way we want them to be. But they are not us. They will have some traits that will be difficult to understand. maybe some things inherited from our parents, or other past relatives. Or maybe just plain and simple they will be them. And that is that. And our most important job as parents is to love them and protect them. But if we question the case of us being good parents, then we are good parents. Bad parents never question themselves. They are a God and law on their own. They are the ones who shout and swear at their children because thats their choice of communication method. Without a thought that every "you stupid...." is killing some little bit of that child self-esteem. And if the child is resilient enough to say "I will show you, what I am worth" then good for them. But if it's not, then we will face whole host of problems. And depression and anxiety are only some of them.
I can only imagine how much it did cost my todays client to be able to say "I know my parents are not good people, but I choose to love them anyway." I hope that my daughter will never say that. I will do everything what I can to help her to be person she will be happy to be. And I will love her unconditionally, always. And if I will have to criticise I will criticise the behaviour not her as a person. Because some weird and stupid things we do are just part of growing up. They don't say anything about person ability to be a decent human. After all we parents are just the keepers of our children, until they are ready to go and face the big world, and it's our job to prepare them to do it, the best we can.
But for those who got hurt growing up, by hands of those who should have protected them- there is always hope. I have seen it today in an attitude of a grown up child who refused to carry on being a victim of bad parenting.

Today

Today I meant to write about looking for inspiration for my spring house makeover, but then I learned about passing of someone who was and wasn't a member of my family. Was, because as a partner of my brothers for 19 years she was a stable point on the family landscape. Wasn't because of very difficult relationship with our parents we never got close.And now we never will. Still sudden death touched my family, so I wanted to write couple words about her as I remember her. And thank her for being this huge part in my brothers life. Dalia was his rock, something I never understood until I met my husband. I never appreciated how dependent people can be from each other. When we first met, I was a difficult teen with many issues, they were adults  (my brother being 6 years older than me and Dalia was a bit older than him) so we didn't have much in common, but I still remember that my first set of artist pastels I got from her. Then after 2 years this huge rift in our family happened (mainly out of our parents fault, never being able to understand how their children can be so much different that  them), and by the time I became who I am as a adult whole relation was so damaged, that there was no trust. And it is something I will always regret.
Something telling about our family is that, I learned about Dalias passing form my brothers blog, not from him calling anyone he is related to. We spoke today and I really feel for him, but I am completely powerless to help him in anyway.
So I am typing away trying to deal with my own emotions, as now from perspective of my marriage, I know what they meant for each other. And don't even want to imagine how I would feel in his place.
Anyway, all I want to say is thank you to Dalia, for being who she was for Jacek. And to my brother that the pain won't go away but I hope you can live with it. For sake of doing things you both started and planned. I like to think she would like you to stick to it.