The (Big Fat) Elephant in the Room
Until this past Christmas, there was not a full length mirror in this house.
Since my wedding, I have gone out of my way to duck, flee, avoid, or just plain get the heck out of the way of, every camera that’s been aimed my way.*
Let’s rip off the band aid here. I’m fat now.
I have never before weighed what I weigh now, I’ve never worn the sizes I’m wearing, I’ve never looked the way I look. (Ironically though, my hair looks bananas, I don’t know why I waited so long to get highlights.)
Like I said before here, I got lost somewhere in 2008 (and I suspect I’ve been sliding away since 2007, if we’re being honest…which we should always be because lying = stress = stress eating = fat! Argh!) I don’t know if it was depression (although it wouldn’t surprise me), or stress or what but I basically took 2008 off from my life and myself and now I am paying the price and it is expensive.
Weighing this much has cost me my energy, my fun, my cool. All of which I really think I used to have so much of. It has made me pick more than one fight with D’oh and odds are it is at least part of the reason Project Baby Very Top Secret Project is taking so long to get off the ground.
It has cost me time with the people I love because all I can think is how they are thinking that I have gained so much weight. But the problem is not that they think that, it is that I have.
It has made me ridiculous. For example, people who write blogs I like also write here. But I waited weeks to click on it because I knew that it would wake me up to what’s been going on around here and I didn’t want to deal with it.
It has kept me away from my blog. Which I love. Because all I think about it seems, is this mess I’ve made of myself and it’s hard to not write about the one thing you don’t want to talk about so it’s safer to stay away. (I think it’s pretty obvious by that last sentence that not writing regularly has had a less than stellar impact on my ability to make sense, huh? Monkey acrobat eats carrot jackets…see?)
Enough.
Even though I feel like crying right now** , the point here is not to bring down the party, Internet. The point is to tell you that I think I’m on my way back. This year is only 27 days old and I’ve already worked out more this year than I did in probably all of last year. I don’t have my/our food under control but I’m working on it. I don’t get up early every morning and work out like I should but I don’t persecute myself for that anymore, I just do my best to make up for it at night…unless something really good is on TV.
And I forced myself to finally Finally FINALLY spill these feelings out all over D’oh. Which was yuck…but good, because he is awesome and helpful and supportive and patient and blahdiddy blah blah blah. I like him, okay?
We have a mirror now because I asked for it for Christmas, we have a camera because I went out and bought one (I would have bought the mirror, but the camera was, you know, expensive). I forced myself to take a picture of myself to get a real look at what’s been going on and while it wasn’t horrendous, it wasn’t my favorite. I know what I weigh and while a part of me toyed with the idea of posting that here, a much larger part said, “Fool girl, you better not!” And then it beat me up.
So, I don’t know how to wrap this up. I’m glad I wrote this because it’s been sitting on my shoulders for days and now I can maybe move on to more important topics like how everybody looked like crap at the Golden Globes (not so timely, huh?) or how something is about to FALL OFF ME!!!! (It is way gross, let’s not even talk about it ever again, mmmmmkay?
I know how much you must be looking forward to those posts, so let’s just say:
It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you were rooting for me, just a little.
*Odds are, I have also been avoiding cameras because Jesus Lord I had the most irritating wedding photographer on earth.
**But I won’t because my face just now recovered from the 12-hour cryfest that was the day two weeks ago that I lost my wedding rings and had to take sick leave and made a darn fool of myself all over work only to have D’oh come home and find them in five minutes…Irish face = Frustrating!
You are very brave because I for one don’t ever want to say out loud all the things I know or think about myself that make me unhappy or that are wrong with me, so you have my utmost admiration.
I’m rooting for you:)
Sorry the majority of my communication with you comes through this blog.
And by the way - your hair does look great.
As a former fat girl with a skinny mom and skinny sisters (yes, I have pictures to prove it), I’m rooting for you. That being said, I have never thought of you as fat but I know that it is a personal issue.
If it helps at all, I have been working on trying to like people better. I even told one of our priests during a confession last fall that I am not a people person (big surprise) but I want to be better about how I view my fellow man and woman. I have been trying really hard–you can even ask my boss and your brother. One of my models is Ebenezer Scrooge (I am not joking) so your gift at Christmas was really quite amazing for me. I don’t want to suddenly find myself old and realize how much time I have wasted in my negative views of others.
I’ll stop now as this is not my blog. You can do it.
Carroll — Thanks, but I don’t feel brave as much as I feel surprised and a little relieved that I got all this off my chest. Anyway, we all know how well I’ve been doing lately at keeping in touch with people!
Fran — Thanks! As far as seeing the good in people, take it from someone who sees the worst basically every day, one way to get through is to remind yourself, or in some cases convince yourself, that most people are trying their best, even if it doesn’t look like it.
First of all, enough with the crying. Oh my goodness, don’t you know I’ve been trained since the age of nine to become extremely agitated when you are upset? Get yourself 5 stinking orange bowls and put one in every room and then whenever you take off your rings, only put them in the orange bowls, then you’ll always know where they are and you’ll get back huge chunks of your life.
As for the rest, it’s always easy to take stock of the problems, but make sure you take stock of all the things that you do right too (like you are very good at marrying the right person). And maybe it’s time to bring in the professionals, because you are clearly wackadoo in the old noggin:) Actually I mean the professionals like a trainer or a big freezer where you can store all sorts of healthy meals that you cooked in advance. Any little step you can take to get a bit more control over your life is bound to make you feel better.