29. My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper

It is perfect to post this on Mother's Day! 

My curiosity was peaked when I saw her on an ABC News report. She is a former beach volleyball star, 6 feet 3 inches tall with a size 12 shoe. She is also a "what is, is" kind of person. So I could identify with her on more than one level. (I am an athlete, 6 feet 2 1/4 inches, weigh about the same, wear a size 13, and am a "what is, is" kind of person too.) I do not use the F-Bomb, ever, but she apologizes for that up front.

She talks about the realities of marriage and raising a young family. She caused a firestorm when she said the word "submit" in her book, “To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and — look out, here it comes — submissive.” I love it! She is so practical about life and doesn't think we can "have it all." So true!

She gets into diet and exercise and had some practical advice about all of that when I thought that the book was going to be mostly about her marriage to the famous surfer, Laird Hamilton. It was OK with me because I am into diet and exercise, and it is part of our emotional well-being as wives and mothers.

It is almost as if Gabrielle has looked at a message about women that I wrote in the late 1990's about the four "C's" (comparing leads to being crestfallen, competitive, or challenged). She writes a similar thing:

I learned early on never to measure myself against another teammate. There were always going to be girls who were bigger, stronger, and faster than I was, and girls whom I was bigger, stronger, and faster than. I realized I had to just do my thing, and work hard at what I knew I was good at. When I saw a chick that was a bada--, my goal was to acknowledge it without being threatened by her talent or her power . . .  

I think it's important for women to get that attitude going, where we can celebrate one another for what we excel in, without comparing or competing. It's ugly when we pull one another down, and it does nothing to improve the quality of our lives. And in the same way it's self-sabotage to envy people; you should strive not to feel smug when you're obviously better than the person next to you -- that's poisonous in it own way. 

I always remember the old saying, "comparison is the death of happiness."

Amen to my twin (minus the F-bombs), Gabby!