That said, I have a spreadsheet where I have been tracking my weight weekly since the beginning of 2016. There. I said it. I recall that we were doing a weight loss challenge at work around then, and I just kept recording it afterwards. I have a fancy scale that measures your body fat percentage, percentage water, bones, and muscle, along with your weight. Every Thursday, I weigh myself and record all of these numbers. With the exception of the entirety of 2017 when I was working from home, there are weekly weights recorded in this Excel file. Just to paint a picture of the level of nuts I am, I have been wearing the same dress every Thursday for quite a while to make sure I get a good measure.
Well... this picture popped up in my Facebook memories a few weeks ago from 10 years ago in 2009...
When I saw it that morning, I thought to myself, "What happened to *that* girl?" I feel like that girl was more confident, sure of herself and where she was going, proud of herself, strong, independent... not, well, so broken. Was it just denial?
Thinking back on who I really was in 2009... I was in therapy for the grief that nearly crushed me after Nana died (which was more about healing a lot of other things besides the grief). I was taking Lexapro to help with depression (which pretty much just turned off my feelings so they weren't overwhelming... good and bad). My relationship with my idiot ex-boyfriend at this point was resolved as being over and something I didn't want anymore, though he was still around (he was my roommate at the time - separate room, separate lives). I was in this place of being single and working on myself and being completely comfortable with that. I was working out pretty much 6 days a week and felt stronger (physically) than I probably had ever felt.
Life was pretty complicated. I had just moved out of the first house I had ever bought. A series of consistent gunshots (too close to our house for comfort) left me watching the coroner removing a body one bright Saturday morning and suddenly I didn't feel very safe. The housing market promptly crashed and I was left with an adjustable mortgage that was underwater in value to the house. It ended up working out for me financially, but at the time it was pretty stressful. The move to the rental was the worst moving day I have ever experienced. My brother dropped the piano on his toe, so most of it was spent at the ER while my friends and family (who I was and am still thankful for) unloaded our truck. When we got home, all of the furniture was in the wrong bedrooms, and everything was a wreck, but it was unloaded and my brother's toe was still attached, so... perspective. Life wasn't easy, but I was ok and I felt like life was looking up (although uncertain).
I wonder now if being sure that life would work itself out was some sort of false sense of confidence. Or maybe it was just the Lexapro. Maybe it was youth. But I felt happy. I felt good. I remember one of the first dates my (now) husband and I went on was on Halloween of that year. We had both gone to separate parties and met up afterwards at Perkins. All of the women at the party were in sexy costumes, and I was in my bee girl costume...
But this was 100% something I would do... and feel totally comfortable doing. I wasn't the girl that would necessarily always wear a sexy costume. I was the girl that made her own costumes and made them as elaborate or simple and cute as I wanted... and felt good wearing them. My after party date at Perkins turned into a lot more than that. And my choice of costume was one reason he was interested. I was intriguing. Where did that girl go?
I think in the last 10 years, life has worn me down... for a lot of reasons. In that time I married the love of my life and that part of my life has been amazing (when it really was not in 2009). But so many other things have changed in the last 10 years, things that come with maturity, self-realizations, ugly pieces of the world that creep in on you, the list is long and varied... that I shouldn't really be surprised that maybe my eyes aren't as bright and hopeful as they were in 2009. My face is older yes, but most of the changes of time marching across my face have more to do with other pieces of life outside of whether I use sun screen or an eye cream.
Anyways... I got a little off track. So the picture from 2009 showed up in my memories, and I have been ruminating about how different I am now vs. then, questioning myself and my confidence, and how I feel about my body, blah blah blah, and thinking about how I constantly feel like a failure about my weight and my body because I don't feel like I succeeded with the weight loss surgery (for a lot of reasons), and I weighed in (like I always do), and opened my spreadsheet to record my weight. I decided right then and there to scroll all the way back up to the top of my spreadsheet to check out where I was in the beginning of 2016 and prove to myself what a failure I really am because the number from then was obviously going to be way better or different from where I am right now.
1 POUND.
My recorded weight from the beginning of 2016 was ONE (1!) POUND off from my weight last Thursday. Did I mention I am a crazy person? I know a lot has happened since the beginning of 2016. I nearly died of sepsis. I had a shit bag for almost a year. I lost 20+ pounds in a couple of weeks when I was so sick. I gained 40+ pounds at home eating my feelings when I had the shit bag. I did keto to take off the regain and get back to a comfortable spot. I started doing yoga and have a really strong core and awesomely improved balance. I can plank for over a minute after starting my plank challenge last month. I have been maintaining my weight, and getting stronger, and building muscle...
and simultaneously constantly feeling like I am failing.
I mentioned all of this to my therapist... even the neurotic ass spreadsheet. She said, "You ask *A LOT* from your body, and it constantly comes through for you. When are you going to have an appreciation for that?"
Maybe this was like an A-HA moment? I do ask a lot from my body. I have asked it to re-do entire houses. I have thought to myself, "You are not strong enough to do x-y-z," and then went directly and did x-y-z anyhow. Literally every week in yoga, my beautiful sister-in-law instructs us to take our poses to the next level (if we feel like we want to or are strong enough to challenge ourselves), and I try to do the things with my body fully expecting it to respond something along the lines of "this bitch is crazy" and instead it gives me "we can do that" or at least "we can almost do that". My body still manages to surprise me.
I think I got stuck in a pattern of feeling like I can't because for about 18 months after I nearly died I really couldn't. It took a long time to recover (fully recover anyways). I can still push myself and my body too far (and you know, end up with a recurrence of mono because I try to do all the things, as a completely arbitrary example). But more often than not, my body just says, "Fine... I guess we are going to do all the things, you insane person." And I clearly don't appreciate that enough, or show enough gratitude for it.
I feel like I could be on the verge of making peace with myself... and my body. Forgiving myself for nearly dying (mostly due to being hardheaded). And giving myself a little space of self-acceptance. I don't hate my body. I realized recently, that I never really hated it. I didn't entirely dislike it either. I just didn't really love it. Maybe the feeling was indifference?
I spent a lot of time thinking that it didn't matter if I didn't 100% love my body because I could always change it and love it more later. I could sit comfortably at 300 pounds and say to myself that it was ok to not be in a body I loved because I needed to lose weight first, then love myself. And after losing a lot of weight and realizing that my body still wasn't what I wanted, I said it was ok to not be in a body I loved because I needed to have some loose skin removed first, then love myself. But I have come to realize, that my body is not ever going to be exactly what I want it to be. The caveat is that I don't think anyone has a body that is exactly what they want. You ask any person if there is something about their physical body they don't like, and most have at least one thing (if not a list of things).
I ask *A LOT* from my body, and my body is asking me for very little in return... just acceptance and love. I give this so freely to so many people, it doesn't seem too far fetched to give this to myself, or at least start to do so.
