Earlier today I posted this cute little cartoon with two little girls staring at a scale when one says to the other “Don’t step on it, it will make you cry.” It was posted with a heart of silliness because I grew up around women who struggled with their weight (as well as mine) and it was all about being skinny. Being skinny meant you were beautiful, and being beautiful meant you would get boyfriends. At least that was what they tried to tell me as they were feeding me a plate of seconds.
My weight didn’t bother me all that much. As long as I could play, it was just a number. I didn’t have any trouble water skiing, kneeboarding, jet skiing, swimming, running around, playing basketball, playing beach volleyball, dancing, singing, marching, rehearsing for hours on end. As long as I had the energy and stamina to do everything I wanted to do I was fine. As boy crazy as I have always been, I always preferred the relationships that only existed in my mind. The real ones didn’t last very long and it all became a frustrating process. As long as it was all in my head, it was completely under my control. Boyfriends were a pain in the butt, I was better off fat, happy and single. Sure I felt worthless, ugly, dirty, gross, stupid, clumsy, but my weight wasn’t the reason why. It made a good scape goat, but there losing it didn’t fix anything. One summer I was put on Fen Fen. My weight plummeted over those 3 months. I went back to school and everyone was making all of these comments about how great I looked, blah, blah, blah. It meant very little to me. I didn’t feel any different at all. I still felt ugly and unlovable. It wasn’t enough to please who I was trying to please. It didn’t make me a girlie girl. I was just a thinner tomboy. It didn’t change the guys I attracted, either. My guyfriends were great, but outside of them there was really no one worth the trouble of dating. It didn’t change the fact that when I did take a date to an event, I lost him by the end of the night. Heck, even my guyfriends weren’t immune. I lost one of my closest guyfriends to one of those. He felt like crap afterwards and we were never the same.
My point being, skinny does not equal happy. Skinny will not fix all of your problems. If you don’t love and accept your body as it is, you will not love and accept it after you change it. The change has to come from within.
I have been on a pretty intensive healing journey for the past 4 years. The first thing I had to work on was changing my thought patterns. Learning to love myself was really hard at first. I had been discouraged, for a lot of my life up that point, from thinking I was someone of any value. I had to look in the mirror every day and keep telling my self how beautiful and amazing I am until I believed it. It took years, but about a years ago, for the first time ever, I referred to myself as beautiful and really meant it. By a strange twist of fate, it happened while I was at the heaviest I had ever been. Over the past 4 years I have, not only learned to love myself, but accept myself. The beauty I was able to see in myself was not just in my body, but in my character. I learned to love, accept and appreciate all of me, past experiences included. Sure, they may have hurt then, and some that I haven’t dealt with, yet, may still hurt now, but they all had their place and purpose. I’ve learned to cry, to mourn, to allow myself to feel, and to allow myself to be vulnerable without fear. It has all been life changing. I no longer prefer the relationships in mind to the real thing. I am an affectionate person by nature, and now it is something i don’t hesitate to share. I, also, don’t hesitate to ask for affection if I want it.
I am surrounded by the most loving, supportive, fun, positive group of people that make it near impossible for me to ever doubt I have value. There are a few haters, but they do not have active rolls in my life. As Aixa always tells me, “if you don’t have any haters than you are doing something wrong.” With that being said, I count everyone as a blessing. Even the haters can forge growth and expansion, but nothing can change your life like love can.
It was the love of life and the love of myself that has led me to the weight loss portion of my journey. All along the way I had begun a process to try to eat healthier, but I had hit a road block and wasn’t really sure where to go from there. I reached out and am getting the help I need to lose the weight and gain the strength and agility back so that I can fully live life, again.
Loving yourself starts within. When you learn to love yourself, you will be more inclined to take care of yourself.
