Stretch City.

These are just a few of my tiger stripes, they also lie just underneath my belly button, on my inner and outer thighs and my lower back. They exist. They are here to stay and they tell a beautiful story. When did we decide as a society that these were gross? At what point in time did someone delegate these as avoidable, unnecessary, and something to be embarrassed about?

My husband has them but feels no pressure about their existence because they are only "bad" on a woman's body. Doesn't mean he enjoys them. When I asked him what his mean he answered,

"Well.. I grew so they happened?"

Yep. That's exactly it. He grew. We all grow. We all stretch. We all age. So for lots of people they appear. I grew too, I grew a human inside of my body, and am busy growing another. I stitched together every little detail of these sweet and wonderful little people that will grow to change lives some day and in order to get them here I had to get stretch marks. We as woman spend so much time and money on product and appropriate attire in order to hide these lines because people will stare and judge and we are uncomfortable with that, it's okay.. I feel you because I am too. I don't want people staring at me, I don't want people to whisper about me when they see my shirt rise. I don't want the extra attention.

But my stretch marks aren't the problem.

We are the problem.

Stretch marks exist on species other than our own and guess what? They could care less. You don't see animals making fun of each other for such material little things. They don't even notice them. We as a society made the decision to associate the marks with something negative. We did this to ourselves.

Not everyone gets stretch marks, and the more we dive into their science the more we find out that they are genetic, if your mom and her mom and the moms before them had them then you are more likely to get them yourself regardless of how much money you spend on product to get them to stay away. They will fade, they can become less noticeable but they stay with us forever. So why don't we associate these marks with a sense of pride instead just as easily as we associated them with "imperfection"? If you have them you have them, if you don't then you don't. They tell a story, our story, one that is unique to each and every one of us.

I love my lines, because I know what I went through to get them. So when my shirt rises while I'm busy carrying my squirmy toddler and you happen to get a peak at my stretchies and become disgusted, I am more than happy to stop and explain to you that without them I wouldn't have the most important parts of my life. I would love to share with you that men, woman and animals get them all the same, and I would love to tell you that your comments won't make them go away.

Love your lines. However they appeared, however they get there, if they show up at all. Because I bet your story is a beautiful one.

-T