The Hips I Hated, Then Lost, Then Missed

How I’ve mostly made peace with my post-menopausal body

Brittany Miles had to reenvision her post-menopausal body image journey when her hips disappeared.

Another mourning.

I have to pretend the fogged-up mirror can’t see me. Or hold me.

Me and the mirror this morning.

Revulsion.

Training my eyes on them.

My hips versus me. All my life. It’s been my battle.

Curves.

Iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve was right. As you age, you can either have your ass or your face. I gently traced my chin with anti-aging skincare products, and my face card did not disappoint. No wrinkles. No pores.

But.

Ass. Flat as my front tire that one time.

Hips MIA.

Stomach slowly softening, expanding. Concave to convex, rolling gently over my panties’ waistband. Rising like focaccia bread dough.

I’m 58. I’ve been through Afghanistan with my hips (body). It’s time for diplomacy.

The mirror is my adversary. I rarely look at myself after I bathe. I keep my eyes fixed on my face. In my thirties, women in their fifties told me they never looked at their bodies anymore. I never understood. Now I do. You don’t exist in the mirror anymore. You’re met with a woman you don’t know but would long to meet if you had your clothes on.

South of my chin, my breasts still look lovely. Rounded and without a hint of sagging. Small boobs for the win. The rest further down is unfamiliar terrain. Cellulite always got the better of me due to genetics. With Pilates I had softness with the hardness of lean muscle and it didn’t dare appear (as much). Now it litters my thighs, or what’s left of them. My hips shrunk away. No, they’re sagging like I took too much Ozempic.

My daughter’s early-onset schizophrenia diagnosis prompted me to stop self-care. I had no time for anything except her. My brain was fighting for her life, and I ignored my body. My hips weren’t central to my thoughts anymore. Only my child.

Somehow, my body carefully removed my hips without my knowledge. Or consent. I know I wanted them gone for years, but not like this. Post-menopause hormone loss was no joke. I can feel and (see) my weakness. Yoga for hips and thighs may help to gain muscle back but I lost something dear.

My hips were a part of me. My identity.

My war with my body. I lost.

This morning, dare I say it out loud? I want them back. I’d pay money to get them back. Women like Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj made hips and butts iconic. I wish in my youth I’d had someone like them reflecting me. Perhaps the war wouldn’t have started, or it could have ended sooner.

Hugging my hips, I fantasize about getting on a surgeon’s table to do fat transfer directly into them. Plump them up like lips. Not Brazilian butt lift big, but just back to what I had. Maybe some 360 liposuction to round everything out. In my mind’s eye I’d look like the rest of Beverly Hills and Miami. A little fine-tuning hurt no one. But I’d never do it. It’s not for me. Not what I needed. The power rests in my mind.

Not buying into beauty standards or diet culture is a start. But it’s hard when it’s encoded into the fiber of my being. Indoctrinated so very young, it’s difficult to change those thought patterns. Eating patterns. Emotional patterns. I’ve nearly killed myself with pills and other methods to keep thin. Laxatives. Overexercising. Starvation. It started with my mother but can end with me.

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As a woman with curves, I should be happy other women are envious. Not really. I’ve been borderline fat most of my life. I’ve had to keep myself hungry to stay thin. When I had surgery for an ovarian cyst, my gynecologist said I was skinny. I felt as though I had found the secret to achieving extreme thinness.

A thin Black girl with hips as round as the moon. A world revolved around these wonders. Hard to push into Levi’s. The jeans were bursting at the seams, leaving a gap in the back where they didn’t fit my waist. A flat stomach didn’t help.

Never quite right for fashion. Snickered at in stores when trying on clothes. I struggled to fit into either a size 2 or 4. Always a 6 or 8, the in-between sizes right before the fashion stops at size 10. I was inching closer and closer to my fear. FAT. As a size 12 now looking back, I wish I could fit into an 8. Looking at pictures from the time I was a bobble head. My daughter couldn’t believe it was me. She likes my shape more rounded, more Mama-like.

When I was 15, I knew how fat I was. Never fully looking in the mirror nor at photos. The first glimpse was of them. I’d silently compare myself to everyone, especially White girls who had the Jordache look with flat butts and boyish hips. That’s what I aspired to. My mother said, “Only a dog wants a bone.” If that’s true, why was she constantly telling me I was getting fat?

One Saturday night while watching Bette Davis in Dark Victory, I was eating three trays of Oreos, and my hand kept reaching and pulling them into my mouth. There were often two in my mouth at once. I licked the cream and kept the cookie crunch deep in my cheek. Slowly I’d mix the two with my tongue. Repeat.

While I was transfixed by the sugar and Bette’s character Judith going blind, I didn’t notice my mother ripping the sugary trays from my crumb-filled lap.

“You just ate dinner. You’re going on a diet. Now.”

Flabbergasted, I wiped the crumbs on my face onto my shirt. I lay across my twin bed. Nothing to worry about now. I wondered if we still had Carvel ice cream.

Yawning, I thought, I’ll deal with it in the morning.

Deal with it; I did.

The 1980s were the golden era of diet food. Lean Cuisine with the eponymous black box. Diet Coke, zero calories. Sweet’N Low, bitter yet satisfying. This was my new world, and I adapted. I ate every crappy “lite” food imaginable. There was no light in that plastic, overprocessed food. I was still growing, yet I was given slop to maintain my figure. No one wanted to grow up fat. It’d be harder to lose when you’re older. They said.

I had no idea that diet pills, specifically Dexatrim, would become my go-to. Savior. Those pills made me so energetic that I lost weight quickly. I doubt these were for kids…but I ate them like candy.

The effect was chilling in my body. I felt so good. I could do anything. Schoolwork. Chores. My mouth was dry, and I was never hungry. Later, I would use laxatives. Different pill, same result.

I was brand new.

I loved the new me. I looked like a supermodel at a mere 5’5’‘.

Protruding hip bones, check.

Pronounced collarbone, check.

My hands gingerly stroked my newly visible ribs (gasp).

Stunning.

But my hips remained. Slightly narrower, but not the boyish look fashioned by my White friends. Those girls were the standard along with their layered blonde hair.

Not even Frankenstein diet pills could get rid of them. They’re like cockroaches; they could survive the apocalypse.

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Looking head-on the mirror has two faces. It reflects both youth and age. I don’t long for youth; I wouldn’t trade who I am today for a smaller number. I don’t want to look like a cookie cutter walking down the street, I want to look like me. I want aging to mean something. Slow long walks with my chihuahua, easy stretches.

I’m vibrant and alive with or without my hips. I’m trying to see through the fog.

Maybe in this moment I accept it (me).

Or will one day soon.

I feel silly for wasting my life’s energy on something I couldn’t change. Possibly a life lesson. I could start loving (or liking) what’s left. That’s still me too. I can be kind to myself whether the lighting is or not. I should listen to the advice I’d give others: “Give yourself (and your body) grace.”

My hips and I may be in détente, but I have redefined victory as something sweet—trays of cinnamon Selena Gomez Oreos—for me.

Brittany Miles is a mental health advocate and essay writer published in Newsweek, Business Insider, The Seattle Times, NAMI blog, and more. Her writing can be found on the website morethanguardians.com.