The Big O

Yesterday was a fine day. I made some granola, did some blogging (as you can probably tell), spent some time with my friends Tyla and Mollie, in turn, as Tyla had to have her hair done and Mollie took a nap upon her return, and I worked out at the gym. In the evening, I dug out all of the bulbs from the half-barrel planters in the back yard, filled the barrels with soil, and shoved some beans into the ground, hoping for some fast summer plants. And fall beans, of course. I added a couple of plants to my pot on the front porch, since the dragon crossvine seems to have lost its desire to put out those pretty red-orange trumpety flowers since I planted it. I pinched back the growing shoots in the hopes of encouraging it to refocus its efforts.

It was in between my swim at the gym and the evening gardening activities that I blithely hopped on the scale and discovered that I am half a pound away from the most that I have ever previously weighed. Talk about a day-wrecker.

I find myself walking a precarious balance between trying to be positive and give myself the benefit of the doubt, focus on action and move forward, and feeling really, really bad about myself. Action is the only thing that is going to change the situation, and no matter what, it can't change today, not entirely. Or tomorrow. Losing weight is something that takes daily attention and effort. It is a pain in the cellulite-lumpy ass. It is.

No matter how much weight I lose, I am never going to get any taller, or any prettier. (See how the negativity creeps in?) I hate jumping onto the hamster wheel that is kept spinning by the media, and women themselves, encouraging women to feel like they must keep improving themselves physically, LOSE WEIGHT! LOOK YOUNGER! DRESS THINNER! BUY! BUY! BUY! And yet I know that when I am this heavy, I don't feel good in the clothes I have. Things stick out. It is uncomfortable to sit wearing anything fitted, not because the clothes are uncomfortable, but because I can feel the lumps on my stomach sticking out. I become the muffin-top poster-child.

The last time I weighed this much was about, oh, ten years ago, I think. I quit my job at Tra Vigne restaurant. At one point while I was working there, I weighed almost 40 lbs less than I do now. By the time I left the restaurant a few years later, I had put a few back on, but still felt ok. The summer after I quit the restaurant, and the next year after, I wore loose linen shifts the whole summer, took a trip to Europe, and enjoyed my time off, deciding what to do with my life. I had a great time, for the most part. I also put on 20 lbs.

The most mortifying moment, which I will share with you now because I believe that sharing embarrassing moments as much as possible helps dissipate them, was when I ran into the former restaurant gardeners at the grocery store. Now, they had only ever seen me at the restaurant, in my suits and blouses, and they knew I had gotten married, and left the restaurant, and that they hadn't seen me for a few months. Suddenly, I was much heavier, and was wearing a loose linen dress. That is the set-up, and you know what comes next. We had gotten a puppy (so it was exactly ten years ago) and I was showing them the puppy. They asked if I had any "other news". It took me a moment to realize what they meant. Holding back tears, I said, "No, just the puppy." and went inside to find Mike. I barely made it out of the store and into the car before I burst into sobs.

Ok, so that's what's on my mind today, as I'm trying to go about my day. When I look in the mirror, from the front, when I'm getting ready each day, I just don't notice it that much. When I take a walk, my silhouette on the pavement doesn't look fat. Most of the time, I forget how I look. Here is a passage from a book I read (coincidentally) a couple of weeks ago, called Fat Girl:

"It may come as a surprise to you-- or maybe it won't-- but I often do not realize that I am fat, or how fat I am. When I am by myself, I don't tend to think about how I appear. I think about what I am doing. So when I see photographs...I am shocked by the difference between how I believed I looked and how I did look. This has happened before; I have believed I looked acceptably attractive, or even pretty, and then saw photographs that showed my wide butt and bulging stomach and those arms as big as big bolognas that hang from deli ceilings."

I realize that my situation is not this dire. The book, if you want to read it, is by Judith Moore. It is hard and short and painfully truthful. I also realize that in this post, I have crossed a new line. This is pretty personal stuff here. But I'm going to put it up anyway.