I'm amazed at the confidence and body positivity these highs school girls seem to have now. I didn't have that then. Shit, I don't have it now. I'm admire how they rock their leggings, jeans, and shorts with their high-tied up shirts without fear or apologies no matter what their body type. My generation - we are still recovering from the Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie era of jeans so low that only a size 0 looked decent in them, and that was questionable.
I've spent all of my life allowing my weight to determine my self worth. I have spent the last several years feeling like a failure. Like, I got "there" then let it all go. I've been beating myself up for a long time mentally, emotionally, and physically bc I failed. I failed to keep losing weight. I failed to stay in those size 16 pants. Ultimately, I felt like I had failed myself. I wondered who would listen to my advice or take me seriously if I was overweight. How would my children and spouse see me if I was overweight? I have allowed my weight to keep me small because I was so afraid of being big. One of my first memories of fear as a child was my fear of being fat. I was afraid of my weight preventing me from walking, finding clothes, or finding a partner.
The truth is, we all have coping mechanisms. Eating and extra weight are just way harder to hide. I think all along it's been fear. For a moment, I thought I had it handled - beat. Then insert my first serious, committed relationship and moving in with that person who was insecure, often cruel, and regularly manipulative - and the fear came back. I wasn't safe emotionally. I wasn't happy, and I was afraid she knew it. How would my habits change being almost 2 hours from my gym and yoga studio?! 30 lbs seem to magically fade away as that relationship began to fade out. Then insert fears of losing myself, again, fear of the future, fear of letting this new person and/or her tiny person down. Was I ready to be a parent? Could I be what this little girl needed and not what my parents were? Fast forward to a year after I gave birth to Bexley. I found myself suffocating in more fear than I had known in my adult life. Fear that had been compiling since they day she was born - fear of the unknown and a brand-new tiny baby, my Mother living close, my marriage struggling, career change, being a SAHM while starting said career, covid, talks of divorce, and depression - the lowest I had felt since early sobriety. I ate more nutty buddies last fall than I've probably eaten in the last 10 years. And I didn't care. Sitting here now, I can recognize all the fear I just kept swallowing in hopes it would disappear. But it didn't. I'm here now because the medicine stopped working, and when the medicine stops working we have no choice but to sit with the pain. Food was my first drug of choice. Few, if any, would notice if my liver or kidney's were struggling from drinking. No one would ever know if I was numbing out to video games or using sex or tv to ignore the fear raging inside me. If shopping or gambling was my go-to coping mechanism, I could hide that much better. But food, we all know when someone uses food to feel better. I've gained 30 lbs since November, and I'm convinced everyone knows. I have been afraid of my life completely falling apart the last 2 years. I've been afraid of big things and little things - catastrophe's to simply misspoken words.
I took a long look at my body. Specifically those areas I carry extra weight and asked what was under there. I felt anger. I sat with that anger until it revealed the names of guilt and shame, and then I wallowed there until I finally discovered fear had birthed them all.
Fear is a choice. If fear is the opposite of love, and they cannot coexist at any given time we are choosing to live in fear or love. 10 years ago my mantra was "choose love." Somewhere I lost sight of that and myself. If I feel anything right now it's peace. My weight cannot determine my self worth, what I deserve, or who I am. My fear of food or being overweight will weight more heavily on my body and heart than any dessert or pizza every will. It's not about body positivity, it's about a deeper self-positivity - thinking and saying things to ourselves that are helpful, loving, and encouraging.
With grace & gratitude...
