Everyone keeps saying I need to accept my body the way it
is. Stop obsessing over the number on
the scale and listen to the way my clothes fit.
And my clothes have basically fit exactly the same for the last few
years – with the exception of a brief freak out period where I gained 25 pounds
thanks to the helping hand of a hormone replacement pill that I quickly flipped
off and threw in the garbage can. It
took me a good SIX months to shed that weight, along with all the self hatred I
gained along with it. And somewhere
along the way, I feel like things shifted.
My body never regained that slender “skinny” that I had when I
originally lost all my weight.
I managed to stop stepping on the scale multiple times a
day. Ya know, after I showered. After I pooped. After I ate.
After I pooped again. Before I
went to bed. In the middle of the night
after I peed. Counting and cringing over
every single ounce gained and lost. Now
the only time I know when to take accountability for an overdose of late night
wine drinking is every three months when I go to the doctor’s office for my
follow up visit. And nothing ever
changes. The scale says the same thing
every single time, plus or minus a few ounces.
Yet something about the way I feel just feels off. Something doesn’t feel as proud. Or as strong.
Or as confident as it used to.
Something in me feels every bit as large and uncomfortable as it did at
317 pounds. Maybe it’s the ever
plaguing illnesses that never seem to give it a fucking rest. I mean seriously universe, kiss my expanding,
middle aged ass already!
People always ask how I am feeling and I die a little inside
because I never know how to answer. I
mean, do they really want to know, or do I give the standard, “I’m fine” answer
because no one really wants to hear how I’m really feeling most days? If you don’t count the hole in my heart, the
never ending blood work and doctors appointments, the lupus, the fibromyalgia,
the daily pain, the recent bout of shingles ON MY FACE (thank you very much
Karma, that was really funny), and the unending depression and anxiety that is
my everyday life, I am Jim-Fucking-Dandy.
Pop a lollipop in my mouth and dance me over a rainbow I’m so fucking FINE.
Except that I’m not.
I mean, sometimes I am.
Sometimes, I have days when I wake up and get dressed and put on a scarf
or some jewelry and look in the mirror and think that I don’t look like a
middle aged mom who is faking her way through being just OK. But to be honest, and maybe this is just me
fooling myself, I have been trying to lose these last ten pounds that were
always my long term goal FOREVER. Maybe
they won’t solve everything, but maybe I would feel like I was finally able to
control something. I can’t make the
lupus go away. I can’t take back the
fibromyalgia. I can’t super glue shut
the hole in my heart. But I CAN lose 10
stupid pounds. Ten stubborn, stuck to my
ass and thighs and stomach pounds that would just make me feel like I took
control of something in my life.
And then in three months when I go back to the doctors to
deal with the things I can’t change when I look in the mirror, I can at least
find a little bit of peace knowing that at least I accomplished taking back
some small bit of control in my life. It’s
strange how something that seems so small and insignificant to most seems like
the most unattainable to me. There doesn’t
seem to be any amount of downward dogging or 5k’ing or trampoline’ing or kettle
bell swinging that I can do that will make that asshole of a scale say anything
different. There are no detox pills or
stomach flu’s or bouts of face leprosy (aka shingles) that will change anything
other than a couple stupid ounces. My weight
is that stubborn kid in the middle of a toy story laying on the floor, rigid
and stiff and unmoving and there is nothing you can do but stand there looking
at it until it decides it’s ready to move.
The metaphorical part of me wants
to kick that stupid kid and tell it to stop being a little asshole, but I know
that if I did Karma would only come back and bite me harder than it already
has.
I want to find peace with myself
exactly the way that I am. Maybe if it
were 20 or 30 pounds it would seem more reasonable. Like I was further away from a goal that wasn’t
meant to be met. But 10 pounds is like
hanging off of a cliff and being a fingers reach away from a cliff hold that
could be the difference between climbing
back to safety or falling further down.
At the end of the day, I know this won’t make or break me,
it won’t define who I am or who I can become.
It’s just another chapter in the Archie’s comic book that is my life. I hope to achieve this goal someday soon, but
if I don’t I’m sure I will find something new to obsess over. I’m sure life will throw me new curveballs
and I will be standing here with my catcher’s mask and glove ready to catch
them all.
