July 30
Have you ever seen a picture of yourself where you think "My god, is that really how I look? Is this how other people see me? Do I really have that many chins? Am I that wide?" because maybe you've gone through your days being told that you are beautiful and this beauty is something you can almost never see in yourself, but you know that people like you--love you even, and people think that you are funny and smart and good and nice and sometimes you can forget that you hate the way you look because you don't look the way you think you should? It's hard, too. You'll see pictures of yourself from say 3 years ago, when you were going to the gym 6 days a week for 3 hours at a time and still still weren't as small or as fit as you wanted to be, but you were definitely smaller than you are now, by far, and you compare what you do now, what you eat now, how you live now to then, and you keep saying to yourself "why or how is it that in order for me to even remain at a size or weight that's moderately acceptable do I have to work that hard? Why is it necessary for me to live on salads without dressing and 4 ounces of boiled meat knowing fully well that the identical moment I stop eating this way, I will be right back where I started, angry and frustrated with myself?" Where do you draw the line between thinking I'm okay just how I am, people will either like me or they won't and I don't actually have to look any specific way, as long as I'm happy with myself and my life and I'm still the same person, even though I look different and I feel different and I may be okay, but I am too damn heavy. Where do you draw the line when the feeling is fleeting? When sometimes you look in the mirror and just for a moment see what it is everyone else tells you they see? When sometimes you'll have made someone laugh or smile and you see them looking at you with their eyes full of love and you think "How bad could I be? If I can make other people happy, it shouldn't matter that I don't exactly look the way I want anymore. I'm not a kid. People love me!"
It's a double edged sword. You love yourself, mostly. Sometimes you'll catch yourself in the mirror, naked even, and not recoil. Sometimes, you'll be getting ready to go to a party and you shake out your hair and it falls in just that way that you like it to and your eyes are dark and shining and you're flushed and happy and everything is really, really okay. Unfortunately, those times are less and less now when the days turn into weeks between times you've gone to the gym because when you do go to the gym, nothing happens the way it used to, and you, being 3 years older have to work twice as hard as you did to even get anything to happen at all and you see people who never stopped going, not even for a week, and they are approximately half your size. They never think 'how many chins do I have?" They never wonder, as they walk into the gym, if people are saying "Man, she needs to work a little harder!" They don't feel like a fraud when they lace up their sneakers. They don't feel like people are looking at them when they choose to go out to eat because, when they go out to eat they are only eating the 4 ounces of steamed fish and they are ever watchful of calorie intake and fat and never have desert, and so everyone kind of breaths out this sigh as if to say "ah, yes, that is how that person stays so perfect! No dessert! Tiny portions! Forever! Not like that OTHER girl, whose obviously got an EATING PROBLEM because, well, look at the size of her! And look what she's eating!"
Obviously, you know that for the most part, this is totally you making shit up in your head. This is you being down on yourself and beating yourself up. But maybe you deserve it. Maybe the fact of the matter is that you are a lazy, lazy 30 year old who needs to watch what you choose to shove into your mouth. Maybe you will not die if you skip lunch or have an apple and some water a few days a week. Maybe you can convince yourself that Chinese food is not one of the basic food groups and that a buffet, no matter how swell, is not a god given right. Maybe you can remember back to the time when you had a salad for lunch, and actually felt full. That fast food wasn't something you'd ever even consider eating unless you were on the road. Maybe it's all because you stopped being motivated and stopped caring and maybe, just maybe its time for you to make some serious changes and for you to figure out exactly where the changes need to start.
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