Not Quite Right (but Working On It)

I know I need to be more positive about myself. I spend a lot of time beating myself up, which isn't exactly healthy. Today I am making a list. A list of things that can I go to on the down days and say to myself, "see, it's not so bad." Here's the list of the things I like about my body. I have good hair. It's thick and generally behaves. It has a  little curl to it and is easy to control. One day I'll let myself go grey, but, for now, I maintain the brunette I've been all of my life. When I was younger, I viewed my hair as a chore; I wasn't interested in the feathered haircuts that were so popular when I was in high school. Now I know that I can just let my hair dry and it'll be fine. I would say that I would have saved a lot of time in high school if I knew that, but I really didn't put too much work into it, even then. I have good skin. When I was a teen, it remained mostly clear and, as a lady of a certain age, it's relativel

Let's talk about my anxiety for a minute. My anxiety makes me edit and edit and edit. I edit my choices, I edit what I think I should say, I edit what I need to do in my life. Maybe if I made this decision, or that one, things would be different. I didn't understand that I was fighting this thing until I was in my 40s. I thought everyone's head was like mine. There's a part of me that's glad to know that my head could be better but there's a part of me that is so jealous of those folks who can live their lives without wondering about their choices. That they can just accept. There are different types of anxiety. One type feels like the world is a scary place and it will do terrible things to you. The other feels like they have to control everything or things will fall apart. I am in the latter category. I have back-ups to my back-ups. I play out scenarios in my head. I rerun conversations, wonder what I could have said better or clearer or kinder. I could

I sometimes dream that my body is different. In some dreams, I am a runner. I can run for miles and miles, and I am so very strong. I feel myself running over fields and not getting tired. I try to beat my best times. I dream that I'm on "Survivor." I don't win but I make it pretty far through the season.  I do pretty well at the challenges and my teammates view me as a valuable member of the tribe. I always make it to the jury. I'm one of those contestants that get invited back for the all-star seasons. I've done as well as coming in fifth, which isn't too bad. In some dreams, I am very thin. I'm the kind of thin that has my body flat and muscular and without curves. I wear clothes that I could never wear now. This is a type of body body that I would never get; I'm simply not shaped like this. I have dreams that I have been dieting and I realize I've eaten a bunch of food that is not on my diet at all: whole cakes, stacks of cookies, a

I have spent a lot of time writing about what worries me or how I struggle with myself, but I need to tell you about the most wonderful thing in my life: Handsome Writer Man. I have known HWM since I was in high school. He thought I was cute then; he thinks I am beautiful now. When he came back into my life, my world opened up. When he smiles at me, I know everything will be alright. When he holds me, I am strengthened and at peace. HWM is a writer and an artist. He sees so much beauty and magic in the world. He takes chances in life. He says his prayers. He is mild-mannered, but he fights for what is right. HWM always believes in me. He thinks I'm an artist and talented and incredible. He pushes me to be my best. He loves me and always sees the best in me. He makes me smile and he makes me laugh. He is my rock. When I think of all of this, I cry happy tears. Reader, I married him.

Now I weigh XXX. How did this happen? How did my body get further away from me than it ever has? How did I get to a place where I literally cry over what I've become? It's a lot of little things that came together. In the past few years, I've moved twice, gotten two new jobs, had a lot of changes in routine, and struggled with being a lady of a certain age. I would say that last item is the one that has lead to the greatest struggle. In the past, when my weight would creep upwards, I could try a diet, and, slowly, get my weight down. But these days, it seems to go up, but it doesn't want to go down. I have tried a number of things over the past couple of years: Weight Watchers (again and again), low carb, portion control, more exercise, fasting days, not eating after 4, combinations of the above. None have been successful. The weight hangs around like a bad habit. It's terribly frustrating. I get that a number of these things could be done just as an attempt

I started working again, and, for a while, I did maintain my body in a reasonable weight range. It was hard: the new company had food around a lot: breakfasts with loads of pastries and delicious treats, free lunches, snacks. We all joked about the 10 pounds we gained when we started working there. I did gain those 10 pounds, but in the scope of all I lost, I could live with this. Sure, I couldn't wear certain clothes and I would favor clothes that hid my sins a bit more, but, overall, things remained manageable for a few years. I was busy, happy in the job, my life was chugging along. About ten years ago, it all crumbled. No need to go into details but within a short period of time I had a job crisis that led to a new job in a new city, and I separated from my then-husband. I was living alone in an apartment in a new place. The stress was enough that I started to lose weight, which was awesome. (Perhaps not the healthiest approach, but I take what I get.) And since I was alo

It was a few years into grad school when we moved away from the gym. Although I lost the muscle definition, I still maintained my weight at a decent level. But then, as is my pattern, I started to ignore my diet. I was busy with grad school, I lived an hour away, I was working so hard I deserved to eat what I wanted. And the weight began to go upwards. I graduated and got a job teaching college. The hours were long, and I was exhausted all the time. I ate and ate whatever I wanted, and rarely exercised. I told myself I was busy and needed to treat myself. I realized that my "dream job" as a professor, the driving factor for going to grad school and putting up with all that nonsense, was not a job I wanted. After two years of teaching, I didn't renew my contract, but I had no idea what it was I wanted to do. I had time to fill, so I joined a gym. I joined Weight Watchers again. At my first weigh-in, they told me I needed to lose 55 pounds to make it to my goal weight

After a couple of years working as a lab tech, I knew I wanted more from a career. The solution was graduate school. This was not an easy decision: I liked my job and made a decent salary. I was going to give up a lot. But I had to look ahead and I knew I'd be frustrated at this level. My coworkers were extremely encouraging and agreed that this was the step I needed to do. They wrote letters of recommendation and gave me a bunch of advice. I applied to a number of schools and ended up at UPenn. At first, I was wait-listed, then accepted which made me wonder how firm my standing was in the program. I spent my first year terrified that the faculty would come to their senses, that I'd be pulled aside and told that they had made a mistake, and I was to leave immediately. In addition, I was lonely. I felt trapped in my apartment in a terrible neighborhood in Philadelphia, where a girl could not go out after sunset. Whether it was mood or lack of activity or poor eating habits (

I first noticed my body creeping to places that made me comfortable the year I taught high school. I was living in my first apartment, earning next to nothing in a job that I didn't enjoy, my family had moved away, I was in a relationship that was frustrating at best. I don't remembering cooking, just grabbing food that was ready-to-eat. I noticed certain clothes getting tighter, and it wasn't just because it was a certain time of the month. Even before that year, my weight always fluctuated, maybe 5-10 pounds in each direction, but now it stayed on the high side and went a bit higher. I've always gained weight fairly slowly (the better side of losing slowly as well). The problem with that is that it is easy to not notice the creeping upward. I just avoided certain clothes, and I could fool myself. The school year ended, I quit the job, and planned to move to the Philadelphia area to be with my parents. I have this one distinct memory of my body at that time: befo

I was over 9 pounds when I was born. I was the firstborn to a young mom. She read that a baby is supposed to double in weight at six months and she practically force-fed me to get there. She proudly presented me to the pediatrician, who told her that that was for a baby that weighed more like 7 pounds at birth. I've always wondered if that set the tone for my body. I wasn't a fat kid. Heavier kids had to buy their clothes in the husky department, and that was never me. But I did always have that little-kid belly and thick, muscular legs. My mom and my sister have long, slender legs, but mine are Campbell legs. They are squat and solid. I always joke that they were made to plow fields. On good days, I tell myself that they are strong. On bad days, I just sigh. As a kid through preteen, I knew I was pretty average and I didn't think much about my body either way. I wasn't a beauty, I was barely noticed. My sister was the cute one, as these things go. I wanted to be

I want to sort the pieces and be a better me. As frustrated as I get with myself, I don't have any desire to be anyone else. I don't love how I look, but I want to look like me. So, what's the plan? The obvious with weight is eat less and exercise more. I wouldn't say I eat a lot, but I definitely favor carbs. Oh, delicious carbs, I will miss you the most. I will have to shift to the lower carb diet, which has worked for me before. I'm not sure if it works because my body is better with that type of diet or I just eat less because all the things I find especially delicious are removed from my diet. I suppose it doesn't really matter. I need to move this body more. I take long walks now and again (a couple of times a week), but I need to force myself to walk every day. This is truly embarrassing to admit, that I am too lazy to get out there for 30 minutes or so, but that's the fact. Here's the especially ridiculous thing: the walks I could take coul

I want to fix myself. Okay, if I'm being honest, I'm not terribly broken. In fact, I have a lot of great things in my life: wonderful marriage, great job, fabulous place to live, lots to love here. But I feel I am off. It's like I have most of the pieces and I just need to rearrange them. Which is where I want to begin. I am using this as a place to get honest. A confessional. A place to dump my negative mojo. Please don't tell me a shouldn't feel a certain way or try to change it. Warning: I will have bad days and I'll probably cuss. A lot. But I want this to be a place I can go to vent or cry or brag. It will be selfish. Here is where I begin: I am fat. I weigh XXX today (I won't be honest enough to put the actual number out there, but I am hoping that XXX becomes XXX-YY pounds) and I do not feel good about this. I think about this way too often each day. I cry over my body almost every day. This is the largest I have been and I hate it. There is not