Ah, the glorious sound of a jackhammer! There's nothing more beautiful at 7:00 in the morning -- when you're sick and tired of using the shop vac in the basement, that is. The basement problem is finally fixed. Or at least they say it is, and if it should happen to leak again, it's under warranty now. Yippee! Rain, you skies! Rain! Rain, I tell you!
Oh, and a sheepish thanks to everyone who commented on my last highly pitiful post. I did go see my grandmother and a friend yesterday, and I've emailed some friends, too. Eh, I get stuck in a rut sometimes, and I just need to kick myself in the butt to get started again.
Now if you will excuse me, I must go do the dry basement dance.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
In Hiding
I keep people at arm's length. It's one of my many faults, and it has taken me a long time to figure it out because I can tend to be all here's my life story and everything about me sometimes. The arm's length part comes after, when I'm feeling naked about having spewed my life story. It's a balancing act, sharing too little, sharing too much, trusting too little, trusting too much.
Tonight I told a friend why I haven't been calling. I haven't been calling because I'm a bit stressed out and, frankly, a little depressed. And, honestly -- okay, I didn't tell her this part -- feeling as if I've told her too much and she'll figure out I'm not fun to be around. Winter does this to me. I'm not the kind of depressed that warrants any intervention, just the kind of depressed that makes me leave my kitchen in a hellish, crusty mess for days at a time and makes me tell myself I have been too busy to return phone calls. I'm not busy. I'm hiding, covering my nakedness. And I told her today -- mostly because she hasn't known me long enough to know not to take my sudden and unexplained distancing personally.
It's not only friends, and it's not only in the winter, and it's not only when I'm feeling down. Generally speaking, I'm afraid of being judged. I haven't spoken to my "best friend" in over six months -- not an email, nothing. Yeah, she lives very far away, but still, six months is a long time. It's not that I don't love her to pieces. I just feel inferior. She is (recently) thin, has a great job, parents with tremendous patience, and is practical and unemotional. I'm the opposite of all of that. But the truth is it wouldn't matter if I were thin or had a great job or any of those other things. I would still find reason to feel inferior and judged.
I have been avoiding my grandmother. Not even consciously, but I've been doing it nonetheless. I should have visited her last week, but the kids had colds. I didn't call her, though. I just let her figure out we weren't coming. I know I have let her down -- and not just about my failure to call or visit. I've let her down with my failure to be a good Christian granddaughter, my failure to raise Christian grandchildren. And so, when I'm near her, I can think only of what a disappointment I am to her.
Last week I went to a moms' night out with some other women in the area. One of the women there was a friend, and the others are just acquaintances. But during dinner I realized that the other women were making connections amongst themselves. Their kids were playing together, they were talking on the phone, etc. Hey, what about me? Oh, yeah, I haven't extended my hand in friendship to any of them. Mostly, with that group, I feel inferior because of my stuttering. When we are all together, my speech is atrocious. So I say to myself, "Eh, why bother?" But, as I said before, if it weren't my speech, it would be something else. Like the fact that I'm the only fat one in the group. Or that they seem so much more together. Or something. There's always something.
And so there you have it. I'm a weirdo. I can't stand that I'm like this with people. Tomorrow I'm calling my grandmother. And I might even email my best friend. But I doubt I'll be able to do it without wishing I could hide instead.
Tonight I told a friend why I haven't been calling. I haven't been calling because I'm a bit stressed out and, frankly, a little depressed. And, honestly -- okay, I didn't tell her this part -- feeling as if I've told her too much and she'll figure out I'm not fun to be around. Winter does this to me. I'm not the kind of depressed that warrants any intervention, just the kind of depressed that makes me leave my kitchen in a hellish, crusty mess for days at a time and makes me tell myself I have been too busy to return phone calls. I'm not busy. I'm hiding, covering my nakedness. And I told her today -- mostly because she hasn't known me long enough to know not to take my sudden and unexplained distancing personally.
It's not only friends, and it's not only in the winter, and it's not only when I'm feeling down. Generally speaking, I'm afraid of being judged. I haven't spoken to my "best friend" in over six months -- not an email, nothing. Yeah, she lives very far away, but still, six months is a long time. It's not that I don't love her to pieces. I just feel inferior. She is (recently) thin, has a great job, parents with tremendous patience, and is practical and unemotional. I'm the opposite of all of that. But the truth is it wouldn't matter if I were thin or had a great job or any of those other things. I would still find reason to feel inferior and judged.
I have been avoiding my grandmother. Not even consciously, but I've been doing it nonetheless. I should have visited her last week, but the kids had colds. I didn't call her, though. I just let her figure out we weren't coming. I know I have let her down -- and not just about my failure to call or visit. I've let her down with my failure to be a good Christian granddaughter, my failure to raise Christian grandchildren. And so, when I'm near her, I can think only of what a disappointment I am to her.
Last week I went to a moms' night out with some other women in the area. One of the women there was a friend, and the others are just acquaintances. But during dinner I realized that the other women were making connections amongst themselves. Their kids were playing together, they were talking on the phone, etc. Hey, what about me? Oh, yeah, I haven't extended my hand in friendship to any of them. Mostly, with that group, I feel inferior because of my stuttering. When we are all together, my speech is atrocious. So I say to myself, "Eh, why bother?" But, as I said before, if it weren't my speech, it would be something else. Like the fact that I'm the only fat one in the group. Or that they seem so much more together. Or something. There's always something.
And so there you have it. I'm a weirdo. I can't stand that I'm like this with people. Tomorrow I'm calling my grandmother. And I might even email my best friend. But I doubt I'll be able to do it without wishing I could hide instead.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
That's Me!
I've been reading a book called Live Large: Ideas, Affirmations, and Actions for Sane Living in a Larger Body by Cheri K. Erdman. Stuart Smalley affirmations aren't typically my thing, but I found the book at the library, and I like to read size-acceptance stuff whenever I can. While many of the affirmations are predictable, the section about "creating your body image" caught my attention and has me thinking.
When I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself, I am less surprised now than I used to be. I have been working on looking at myself in the mirror, studying myself objectively, and trying to keep my thoughts neutral. The goal is, as one large lady on a message board I used to read once said, to see myself in the mirror and think, "That's me!" Just a neutral declaration, no cringing, no flinching, no sucking in the gut. Just, "That's me!" I have come a long way toward that goal.
And yet, when I go about my day -- when I walk my son into his preschool, when I grocery shop, when I dance, when I shovel snow, when I do yoga, when I am intimate with my husband -- I see myself as much smaller than I am. I imagine myself as "normal." It's not a forced imagining. It's just how I view myself when I'm not thinking about it and when there's no mirror to prove me wrong -- as an average-sized woman. This completely unrealistic body image has caused me some discomfort as I've tried to move toward the "That's me!" mentality. I even tried a while back to picture myself as I really am while I was kissing my husband. It ruined the moment, and so I quickly switched back to my unrealistic self-image.
In the book I'm reading, I found the following on the topic of an unrealistic body image:
Wow. So no more guilt about it. It's a coping mechanism. A way to make myself feel "normal" when the world tries to tell me I'm not. Cool!
I'm reminded of how much better my current view of myself is than the one I had when I was a teenager and a size twelve. When I was a freshman in college, I briefly dated a guy who would later sleep with my roommate. But before any of that happened, I pushed him away with/because of my negative body image. One day he kissed me and put his hand on my waist. I panicked, thinking only that he was touching an enormous, grotesque roll of fat, thinking how if I couldn't stop him from touching me, he would figure out just how hugely fat and disgusting I really was, because somehow he had failed to see it. I pushed his hand away. He tried several more times to touch me (he was an eighteen-year-old male, after all), and each time I pushed him away, preferring only our lips touch. Obviously, that relationship was doomed to fail. He was not right for me in many ways, so the story isn't a tale of "the one that got away." It's just a strange memory from a place very far from here.
Sure, it would be great to have the body I hated back then. Yet I'm so much happier now, finally looking like my old body-image, while my new body image is that of the size twelve body I never appreciated.
When I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself, I am less surprised now than I used to be. I have been working on looking at myself in the mirror, studying myself objectively, and trying to keep my thoughts neutral. The goal is, as one large lady on a message board I used to read once said, to see myself in the mirror and think, "That's me!" Just a neutral declaration, no cringing, no flinching, no sucking in the gut. Just, "That's me!" I have come a long way toward that goal.
And yet, when I go about my day -- when I walk my son into his preschool, when I grocery shop, when I dance, when I shovel snow, when I do yoga, when I am intimate with my husband -- I see myself as much smaller than I am. I imagine myself as "normal." It's not a forced imagining. It's just how I view myself when I'm not thinking about it and when there's no mirror to prove me wrong -- as an average-sized woman. This completely unrealistic body image has caused me some discomfort as I've tried to move toward the "That's me!" mentality. I even tried a while back to picture myself as I really am while I was kissing my husband. It ruined the moment, and so I quickly switched back to my unrealistic self-image.
In the book I'm reading, I found the following on the topic of an unrealistic body image:
When we larger women underestimate our size, we are not in denial, or crazy, or
anything like that. We are actually responding to a sick culture in a
psychologically healthy way: seeing ourselves as smaller allows us to act as if
we are a smaller size, which in turn allows us to move through life less
encumbered by fat stereotypes. We can act as if our size is not an issue. Having
a creative body image is really a tool for living a quality life in the bodies
we already have.
Wow. So no more guilt about it. It's a coping mechanism. A way to make myself feel "normal" when the world tries to tell me I'm not. Cool!
I'm reminded of how much better my current view of myself is than the one I had when I was a teenager and a size twelve. When I was a freshman in college, I briefly dated a guy who would later sleep with my roommate. But before any of that happened, I pushed him away with/because of my negative body image. One day he kissed me and put his hand on my waist. I panicked, thinking only that he was touching an enormous, grotesque roll of fat, thinking how if I couldn't stop him from touching me, he would figure out just how hugely fat and disgusting I really was, because somehow he had failed to see it. I pushed his hand away. He tried several more times to touch me (he was an eighteen-year-old male, after all), and each time I pushed him away, preferring only our lips touch. Obviously, that relationship was doomed to fail. He was not right for me in many ways, so the story isn't a tale of "the one that got away." It's just a strange memory from a place very far from here.
Sure, it would be great to have the body I hated back then. Yet I'm so much happier now, finally looking like my old body-image, while my new body image is that of the size twelve body I never appreciated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)