So… Now What?

Chapter 1 - I’m tired…

In high school, I thought I was fat. 5’6” at 150 felt too high. Looking back at it, I was naive and hot. I was a D cup in a land of flat chests and no hips. I had a body other women envied. I got ogled and groped and I thought that that gave me worth. I buried the pain of the interactions.

But then there was 160 in college. I simultaneously hated and loved my lifestyle. I loathed the number and relished the feel of strong hands running down my waist with greed and purpose.

But I settled down. Leo loved me and made me feel grounded for the first time my life. I married him at 24. I was quickly pregnant with our firstborn within six months. It was thrilling and terrifying. Being a mom was different. I found purpose and love I’d never known possible. I also gained weight a bunch of weight.

I had to cry it out alone when I hit 200 during my second pregnancy. I was 27, blessed with a good husband and a healthy and wonderful child, and also deeply unhappy because of a number on a scale that I KNEW made me ugly and worth less.

After our second was born, I checked my weight when it didn’t make sense. I checked every day. I thought I did it to have control. It was sabotage and self-hate. It made me aware of what I thought was my lifelong personal failure, constantly.

So, I did all kinds of diets. You’ve heard of it, I tried it for six months or a year. Paid for some. Read about others. They took time and bandwidth. All it accomplished was to go up and down 5-10 pounds.

At 34, I finally realized how tired I was. My kids were 7 and 9, and had only seen me disgruntled and dieting. I sat and cried after they went to school the day I finally submitted to knowing this wasn’t wrong. Long, hard sobs. Then I numbed myself on my phone for a while.

It was a bleak day and I hated it more than I’d hated myself for a long time. Which meant I needed to make some major changes. I wrote a letter and let my 150 high school days go. I wrote down how I am letting go of the importance of the numbers on the scale, period. I just wanted to stop worrying all the time about weight or calorie counting.

I’m tired. Too tired. I just want to eat and live. I feel like that’s reasonable. Or right? Maybe both.