Hi, I'm Here To Make You Uncomfortable

Have you seen the pictures that I have posted of myself on this blog before?

Well most of you have and let me tell you, a few aren't too happy about it.

Here, I'll give you a few examples so that you don't have to scour all 180 posts on this blog to find the ten or less that I'm talking about.

My covered boobs made it into "Conversations I Did Not Think I Would Be Having This Week."

You got a glimpse of my back and covered ass in the post "And Before I Knew It My Boobs Were On Facebook,"

I had a few tummy shots in "Things That Make You Ask Why." and then my body also made an appearance here and here, as well as an underwear shot here,

"How DARE Eden point out all of those scandalous photographs to us! What an attention whore!"

Are you annoyed yet? Because I can keep going if you want.

What if I were to add another photo?

And Before I Knew It My Boobs Were On The News

It was recently brought to my attention that posting the pictures that I do on here might make me look less than professional and that if my identity were to be revealed, that I might lose support for my nonprofit.

Sigh.

For all of about ten minutes the “unprofessional” comment stewed about in my brain while I tried to determine exactly how I felt about it.

You see, they had a point. I can definitely imagine that if the media were to flash a scantily clad photo of me across the 6:00 news, paired with one of my blog title’s such as “should I bang both of them,” that it might catch people off guard and cause some controversy. I can absolutely see how it might cause someone to reel back a little bit and think “I’m supporting her nonprofit?” I can see how this might not look too great for me.

I thought about it for the entire ten minutes and I decided that I hated it.

I hate the fact that once again I’m being reminded that the entirety of the person that I am could be judged based on how I present my sexuality. That all that I am, all the work that I do, could be washed away completely and the only thing left of me in the public eye might literally be myself and my underwear.

The more that I thought about it, the angrier that I got. Not at the person that brought it to my attention, but that he had a valid point; society might very well judge me based on the pictures that I choose to post of my body. Do you know the message that sends to our women? That our body is our most important feature; that all that we are can be defined by what we do with our body. If that’s true, then that really makes me sad because my body has already been beaten, abused, and treated like trash multiple times over, so I guess my most important aspect is tarnished.

Because Normal Is For Boring People

So, yall want to hear about my weird week? Sure ya do, I know half of you tune in daily to watch the train wreck that is the life of one Miss Eden Strong.

I’m ok with that.

Monday: I dropped the kids off at daycare early so that I could run to the grocery store before work. Apparently 7am on a Monday morning is not prime shopping time. I feel fairly confident in making that statement seeing as how I was literally the only person in the store. Since no one else was there, I also felt fairly confident that I could ride my shopping cart as if it were a children’s scooter even faster than I normally do. As I stood at the beginning of a very long aisle, a little voice in my head said “Girl, I bet you could make it to the other end of the aisle with only three start off pushes. “

Yes Eden, challenge accepted.

After three start off pushes I was surprised at how fast I was actually going, a little bit proud even. I was also surprised that apparently at 7:10am other people enter the store. I almost took out an old lady that stepped into the aisle just as I was crossing the finish line. I did not hit her. I did however see her giving me “you are crazy eyes,” so I decided that it would be appropriate to wave at her and announce “HAPPY MONDAY” as if I were some kind of deranged Santa Claus.

Tuesday:  I’m one of those new age hippies that believes in natural healing and homeopathic treatments, so in a work services trade I clean a chiropractic office for a couple hours a week and in return they treat me and the kids for free. Everyone loves to keep the highway of your body healthy, am I right? Crazy? Eh, it’s all the same these days anyway.

Speaking of anyway, one of the chiropractors there is a guy that I went to high school with. He was a grade level higher than me and I’m fairly confident that we didn’t know each other. I am fairly confident of this because I don’t remember him and he must not remember me because he asked me for maiden name one day. “Oh and why is it that you would want that? Could you possibly be looking me up in your yearbook?” I asked him.

I'm Selling My Body

I was never nurtured into adulthood; I was dragged, kicked, and shoved until I got there. It wasn’t long after I turned 18 that I came home to find my parents putting boxes in my room and essentially telling me “we’re done, get out!” To be honest, I couldn’t fill those boxes fast enough and I did get out so fast I think the only thing you would have seen was the streak that was me fleeing from the hell hole I called home.

But before I moved out for good, I lived in a lot of different places. There were many nights after I just couldn’t take it anymore that I would climb out my bedroom window, completely unbeknownst to my parents, and head to the downtown area less than a mile from my house. There I would sleep under the bridge with the rest of my fellow “unwanteds,” and together we grew up. Street kids form a family unit that is unlike anything you can imagine unless you have lived it. 

Despite how accepted I was by the kids I met under the bridge, there was a distinctive difference between them and myself. Most of them had been subjected to horrors that differed from mine in such a way that theirs exposed them to the world. They watched their drug addicted mothers prostitute themselves and they visited their fathers in jail. They lived on the streets and in homeless shelters until their parents either disappeared completely or they ran away from whatever hellish foster home they were in and landed under the bridge. I on the other hand never experienced any of that because I grew up in almost complete isolation, never learning much outside of the four walls of my home. When I finally started running away from home I was so oblivious as to how the world worked that they took me in and fiercely protected me, knowing that I would never make it out there on my own.

I watched the kids around me fall prey to the ways of the streets. Girls became prostitutes and guys became drug dealers. I watched many fall into their own drug addictions and I unfortunately watched several lose their lives because of it. When you are a street kid, no one tells you that you can be anything. We didn’t sit around saying “I want to become a doctor. I want to become a lawyer.” We sat around hoping we made it to adulthood and beyond that we didn’t dare dream.

"Let's Talk About Sex Baby"

Ok, for my American counterparts, I have that really awful song by Salt N' Pepa running through my head. "Lets talk about sex baby, lets talk about you and me, lets talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be, lets talk about sex."

Last night I ran a support group for sexual assault survivors, and the topic was sex. It was really interesting to hear what everyone was feeling. I think we can all agree that society has placed such standards on us in terms of sex. What is expected of us, what is not expected of us, what is, and is not appropriate, its a lot of pressure to live within the guidelines! One move in the wrong direction and you might be stamped with a rather unattractive label.

So, let's talk about sex.

In Which I Take My Clothes Off For Money

Now before you get your panties all in a bunch, simmer down and listen, it's not what you think. I don't take my clothes off for men. I take them off for women. And not just women, mostly, I take them off for myself.

Get over it.

That is the motto that runs rampant in the "Sexy Survivors" dance class that I teach. You don't like your butt? Get over it. You don't like your post baby belly? Get over it. Your boobs are too small? Too big? GET OVER IT.

You need to love yourself, your true authentic self, every part that makes you who you are, every piece of you that tells the story of your journey. They are all you. My belly shows that I have mothered two children, and I am damn proud of it. My thigh bears the cigarette burns from my abusive ex. There is a healed knife wound on my shoulder, so faint that you can only see it when I am tan and in the right light, but I am well aware that it is there. My ankles bear the scars from the time that this happened.