i’ve been thinking about this post for a few days. or maybe a few months. years even? yes. close.
i just finished a spinach pizza from the freezer. this weekend i’m going to eat all the crap or throw it out, because monday is the starting day.
again, for the last time.
when i was a little girl, my thighs never fit in my soccer shorts. all i wanted was to have long blonde straw straight hair and skinny thighs. i hated playing soccer more than any words could possibly express. everything about it, from the very nature of team sports to my hyper-competitive dad’s disappointment in my utter uselessness on the field to the way my shorts fit…all of it. i loathed every minute. but i had to play because don’t you know sport and fitness are important to the healthy physical and mental development of a girl? no matter that you’re forcing her, and that in 12 long years of playing a sport (and not playing the goal keeper position) she never scored a goal. nice.
so at about 11, i tried out for the swim club. and i made it (or whatever - my parents agreed to pay the heinous ransom to let me join). and i loved it. and i swam and swam and swam and everything about me changed. i remember standing in the front hall mirror and thinking the jeans i was wearing made my tummy look flat. and then i realized that with or without the jeans my tummy was flat.
oh frabjous day! calloo callay!
i could do anything. i was pretty. i did well in school. i was a cool kid. i was athletic. i found some kind of confidence inside me that changed my entire life.
but you know what? i wasn’t a fat kid. i never was, not at all. i just felt like a fat kid. i hated myself. i was scared of life and knew no one really liked me. i did well at school, but always failed math. i was terrified of it, actually. when i look at pictures i wonder at the memory of what i saw inside myself at the time. it was distorted right out of reality.
over the years a million things changed. so many big and little things including my parent’s divorce and leaving swimming for a thousand awful reasons. after i graduated from highschool (2 years after my friends) i started to feel fat again. i was 21 years old. i was going away to school. my life was about to get better, but first it had to get so much worse. or was it going to get better?
again. i look at the pictures from my early 20’s and wonder at the memory of what i saw there at the time.
fast forward another couple o’ years, and i drank my way out of university. smoking. an unhealthy pot habit. self-destructive sex. oh! good times!
flip that comic another few pages. see how the girl runs? see how her belly, her thighs, her ass get bigger? what you can’t see is how much she’s starting to hate herself again. see how much she wants to be someone else, but is stuck being her? oh yes, she’s stuck stuck stuck and the panic is mounting.
i met a man. lovely guy. did not fall in love, but did he ever make things easier! so i settled into a terrible relationship for 5 years. quit smoking somewhere in there. got a good job. solidified some great friendships. lived the yuppy life in downtown toronto, including the fancy condo and the dining out for sport.
but i wasn’t happy. i was getting more and more unhappy.
finally found the courage to leave him. bought a house. got pregnant. invited mr. notquite back into my life. quit my job. went back to school. started smoking again. invited mr. notquite to leave again. broke my own heart over a stupid manchild. became the very best parent i know. sold the house. went to grad school.
and all the while, i got bigger. and bigger. and bigger.
i would jump on something here and there. weight watchers, for 20 pounds. personal trainer for 20 pounds. quit smoking here and there. discover i hate the grad program i chose. decide i am stupid. decide i am ugly. cease having any attention from men at all. eat some more. smoke some more. do less writing. less reading. stay up late. eat more sugar. more fat. more sugar. more fast food. spend everything. try to keep it together for the most beautiful girl in the world. do a pretty good job, but no one fools bright children entirely. feel worse and worse and worse and worse until i am sobbing, panic stricken almost all the time. get a terrible terrible hair cut. realize i am avoiding mirrors because i hate the way i look. see pictures of myself at a women’s retreat and sob sob sob sob that i look so monstrous. eat more. smoke more. panic. cry. feel stupid. do no writing. hide. the only thing i maintain a firm commitment to is my own catastrophic self-immolation.
until 2 weeks ago. the girl was eating breakfast. i lied to her about taking the dog out so i could have a smoke. me. smoking in the days after a close friend died of a vicious cancer. my face, tearstained and beaten black and blue by exhaustion, contorted as i choked on my beloved cigarette. i faced myself in the chill of morning and decided that these choices were not the ones i could continue to make. this is not the life i want to live. broke. failing out of school. smoking. seriously overweight. not in a mature loving adult relationship. so desperately unhappy i can’t bring myself to make eye contact with the woman in the mirror.
it all has to change.
here.
so. i went to the website that helped me quit smoking the first time and made a new profile.
i am 15 days quit smoking. the last day 15.
i found this place. and i’ve been reading and weeping over all of you. and i hate some of you who look so healthy and wonderful because jealousy is an ugly, nasty beast. and i want to be like so many of you, and just as i quit smoking, asking for help and offering it, i will face this challenge and i will find myself inside myself.
i will learn how to say no to poisonous foods. i will learn to eat enough, but not too much. i will re-learn the love and adoration of physical movement, bodily confidence and i will rediscover the joy of my own body.
i will stop hating myself.
you see, there is a life just over there i can see. the woman living that life goes to bed early and rises with energy and enthusiasm for the new day. that woman eats gorgeous heathy foods, but not too much. she takes a tremendous pleasure in growing food, learning about it and preparing it. that woman gets a little bit of exercise everyday. she runs, swims, bikes, stretches and can dance until the sun comes up. she works hard at her schooling, and is successful. she is surrounded by people who love her, and helps them in every way she can. she is a wonderful parent. she contributes to the life of her community and lives within her means. she is happy and content, and loves herself enough to let it flow out to all the people around her.
she has released fear and self loathing. she didn’t lose weight to catch a man or be on the cover of a magazine. she did it for herself, so she and her daughter could walk and run and laugh together for many many years to come. she did it so she could stop crying and being so scared. she did it so she could look herself in the mirror and forgive herself, allow the shame to run away and so that she could live.
so that she could walk in beauty.
so that she could know gratitude.
so that she could finally and above all, simply be.
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