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A visit from my former self
January 18, 2006 | Category: In My Life
(Note: I never meant for this to be synchronistic to Helen's post today and wrote this completely unaware that she tackled similar themes - and much better than I. I recommend it!)
This morning we met with the head of Bear's Montessori school as well as the learning specialist who has been working with him.
Normally, when I approach these meetings, I fall apart. Because I am overweight.
People who have met me know this, I can't hide it. I am over 50 pounds overweight, and I have gained over half of those pounds since CD became Depressed. I can't even blame the pregnancy with Bear - although sitting on my fanny for 7 months atrophied every muscle in my body including my brain.
I was 20 pounds overweight when I married CD. I wore a size 14 wedding dress, off the rack. I was also, Oh Happy Day, bloated with stress and my period. (And you wonder why I don't post my wedding pictures. Heh.)
I can be 10 pounds overweight. I will wear a size 8/10/12 and carry those extra pounds in my stomach and my upper arms and a little waddle in my chin. But these can be addressed. After all, God gave us special underwear for the first and tailored shirts for the second and for the last, well, I had a waddle under my chin when I was in high school and weighed 105 pounds and wore a size 6. So that's a nip/tuck or suck it up situation.
I am built like a brick shithouse, as they used to say. I got boobs, too much. I got a pinched-in waist even now. And I got junk, and it's in my trunk, and I made peace with THAT a long time before J. LO thank you very much.
I have short curvy legs and short curvy arms and a dimple in my apple cheek. And the only way for me to look thin - like Bette Midler - is to be about 10 pounds underweight. That's when my hip bones jut out so much that I can't sleep on my stomach and my ribs stand out under a t-shirt.
I remember gaining the freshman 15 and having to buy a size 8 pair of jeans and sitting on the dressing room floor, sobbing so hard that the saleslady asked if there was someone she could call to help me.
I was 120 pounds, and disgusted with myself. In a frenzy of self-loathing I would pinch myself, hunting fat everywhere - at the sides of my breasts and under my arms and between my ribs.I would push on my thighs and cry when I saw how grotesque they looked. My mother would chide me to cut back on dessert and I would stomp away, terrified of my own digestive system and angry with her for saying it our loud.
I decided to do something I had never done before - diet. The summer after my sophmore year of college, I gave myself 500 calories a day and excersized at least an hour or two every morning and afternoon. Then I would bundle up in soft, draping clothes already sizes too big and despise my reflection in the mirror.
The battle became my life. To this day, I look back at pictures of me and realize I was beautiful in my skin and gasp when I remember how scared I was of getting fat.
But I still can't turn off the tape inside my head. The one that says other people are lovely and wonderful no matter their size - but for me, there is a different set of rules.
At 50 pounds overweight, in a pair of size 20 jeans, I hate my body. I look away when I get out of the shower. I hide from meeting new people.
But for my son, I will do anything. So I got up, took a shower, blew dry my hair, and put on clothes. I sat at the table with un-manicured hands and no make-up and dressed well and I got to business.
It was the first time in years that I didn't walk through the door feeling apologetic for how I looked.
Appearance was always so important in my family, in a New England sort of way. To be dressed nicely, but not fashionable. To be well groomed, but not 'done up'. To be naturally attractive and glowing with good health and boast a trim, active body.
I have realized over the years that I don't want to be attractive in a New England sort of way. I like some honey glints in my hair and my eyebrows waxed by someone who isn't me (I am terrorist with a pair of tweezers. What I have done to my left eyebrow - on numerous occasions- is a crime against women everywhere). At my natural weight, when I feel healthy, I wear a size 10. I have a lush body, with cream and pink skin, and my full lips were made for gloss.
And kissing.
But right now I am still 50 pounds away from that. And I have let that weight interfere with how I live.
Until today. Today I forgot about my looks, forgot to be self-conscious, forgot lose my self-esteem at the door, and just had the meeting. It wasn't until I got home and my friend was complimenting the cut of my jeans that I realized what had happened.
Last night, I looked inside and saw all the darkness that I am fighting. All the anger and resentment and stress that has built up in a swarm slamming inside my soul. And then, this morning, a visit from my former self. The one who used to walk talk at 5 foot 2 inches. I used to love being female, with a Marilyn Monroe body. I used to feel confident in my skin, and that meant I could focus on other things.
I am not sure how it happened, because it was a crappy kind of morning before the meeting. And the meeting itself actually wasn't all that productive. But then, I was sitting in my office sorting through my work mail and I realized that I had never had my panic attack this morning - the one I have before meeting someone new about my first impression as "a fat girl".
And then I remembered before. When this is how it used to be.
And I wonder, I mean, just a little bit... if maybe somehow I can become OK with this body even as I finally give myself the time and energy to get healthier. If maybe, in facing the darkness, there is a path to the joy of my former self.
Maybe.
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