Ab Envy

To steal the great, late Nora Ephron’s fabulous title of one of her books, “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” today on the beach the only thing that was running through my head was I feel bad about my stomach.

As I watched girls in their twenties stroll the beach in their cute little bikinis, I realized that I did not spend enough time in my twenties appreciating my flat, hard stomach. Damn it. Why didn’t I enjoy it whilst I had it?

Fast forward twenty years later, two kids who almost killed me during deliveries, and a metabolism on the slow-down, and all I’m left with is, as Julia Roberts says in “Eat, Pray, Love,” a muffin top.

I have stomach envy. I miss the days when I could prance around in a bikini and look good in it. When I get home, I may have to visit my mother and look in her old photo albums for photographs of me in a bikini to validate that once–yes, once–my stomach was attractive.

Women in their 20s and even in their 30s…do yourself a favor: appreciate what you’ve got before one day, you have regret, and you feel bad about what once was your lower, sexy abdomen.