Getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden is a huge bummer. We just keep feeling the effects generation after generation. We feel shame about stuff that is totally natural and ordinary and parade stuff around that we ought to have a little healthy shame about.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

Do you know what we’re proud about? Our bodies. When Adam and Eve first experienced the effects of sin, they learned they were naked. They ran and hid because the only thing worse that accidentally stuffing your skirt into the back of your underwear after using the bathroom at church has got to be running into God while naked. I can’t even read the Bible on the toilet because of how deeply I feel this reality. I also can’t use the toilet during a thunderstorm on the off-chance I’d be struck by lightening and the EMTs would have to remove my charred, half-naked body from the toilet. I fear post-death humiliations almost as much as the regular kind of humiliation. But I digress. So anyway, Adam and Eve got the idea pretty quickly that there’s something about nudity we need to avoid. And we’ve been testing those boundaries ever since. And now not only do the patrons at the local pool get to see how you look in your new swimsuit, but so do your thousand social media followers as you pass that photo around. Dear Teenagers, stop doing that. Sincerely, Me.

We talk about fierce new outfits. We spend half our grocery budget on a skirt and when somebody compliments it we say, “This old thing?” We post #selfies. For the love, WHY?! Do we not own mirrors anymore? I seriously think this is the equivalent of Snow White’s wicked stepmother. It’s not enough to own a mirror and figure out for yourself how you look, we only feel validated if we also get a voice coming out of that mirror. Just for us, that voice takes the form of “comments” or “likes” or whatever you call that heart option on Instagram. Seriously, if you looked awesome and didn’t #selfie, did it really happen? This is the question I’m sure philosophy students are debating on college campuses right now. . . when they aren’t busy hashtagging pictures of themselves chillaxing.

I’ll admit that I’m a social anomaly this way. My Mennonite genes won’t allow me to take pictures of myself without somehow exuding judgement out of my own eyes on that decision. It tends to ruin whatever effect you were going for with the self portrait. And also, three weeks ago my husband removed our bathroom mirror to fix some drywall issues and put up a new bathroom mirror, but like most of our home improvement projects, that has not happened in a timely manner. So I feel like I ought to be on some kind of ABC 20/20 special about “The Woman Who Basically Guessed How She Was Looking for a Month” because I’m currently applying my make-up in my dimly lit bedroom and honestly I’ve never been happier. Ignorance is bliss and I am learning that basically nobody cares how I look as much as I do. So if I quit being preoccupied about it, it seriously ceases to be an issue.

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