A Woman with Salt on Her Skin

 

A Woman with Salt on Her Skin

Not long ago, I set up my phone on a rock at Van Stadens and filmed myself running into the ocean in slow motion. I wasn’t trying to look sexy or dramatic — I just felt alive, free, and full of playful energy. When I watched it later, I laughed. The video was fun, beautiful, and full of joy… and yes, my thighs had dimples and cellulite. My skin wasn’t airbrushed, my body wasn’t twenty anymore, and nothing was “perfect.”

Once upon a time, that would have ruined the whole moment for me.

But something surprising happened.

I didn’t feel ashamed.

I felt proud.

I thought:

I am not a child anymore… and yet I refuse to stop playing like one.

For so many years, I chased perfection. I worked out, dieted, boxed, gymmed, ran, and sculpted my body until it was firm, toned, and strong. But I never really appreciated it. I dressed modestly, hid my shape, and shrank myself smaller because someone close to me couldn’t handle a confident woman. Every time I felt good, he broke it down — quietly, cleverly, and constantly.

Now, here I am, softer in places, curvier in others, with marks, dimples, cellulite, and time written across my skin… and yet I finally feel free.

Free enough to wear short dresses.

Free enough to run into the sea.

Free enough to take up space without asking permission.

Free enough to braai by myself for the very first time and enjoy my own company.

Today, a parcel arrived from Shein — five short dresses and two shorts. Clothes I would never have worn in my past life. Clothes that show my legs, my arms, my body exactly as it is. And I smiled because I didn’t buy them to impress anyone. I bought them for me.

Tonight I lit a fire and cooked for myself.

Not because I was lonely, but because I am learning how to belong to myself.

The truth is: I still want to be fit and strong again, but not for the world and not for a man — only for the woman who looks back at me in the mirror. The woman who has survived heartbreak, motherhood, loss, love, grief, and rebirth. The woman who is still here. Still laughing. Still learning. Still living.

I am a woman with soft places, scars, stories, storms, and sunshine.

My thighs jiggle when I run, my skin isn’t firm, my boobs have travelled south, and my confidence has finally come home.

And tonight, after my braai, I took another walk on the beach —

not to escape my life,

but to celebrate it.

So here’s to dimples, cellulite, dresses, freedom, and doing things alone without feeling lonely.

Here’s to women who wasted years trying to be perfect, only to discover they were already enough.

And here’s to me —

still here, still growing,

and finally, beautifully, joyfully free.