I pretty much feel like crap.
I'm fat. I'm tired. I had a stroke a couple of years ago, but I don't know how much of my malaise is brain-related or just my impending approach to the daily geritol stage of life.
I look back at pictures and posts and messages from a couple of years ago- I ran, I did Zumba, I did daily workouts, I cooked and ate only Whole30-approved stuff, I won a weight-loss challenge at school when I was @ Edwards... et cetera. At the time, I was uber dissatisfied with how fat I was even THEN, but looking back, and reading some of my weigh-ins and seeing my level of activity, I want to go back to that me and slap myself. Fat. HAH.
And don't even get me started on "fat high school Jenny." Oh, to be that "fat" again.
Today's Jenny rivals the weight, sluginess, and sedentary lifestyle of one Tatooine Hutt, specifically Jabba Tiure. To be clear, I'm not a crime lord, so at least there's that, but my kids would probably tell you that I do blob around, issuing commands and shoving food into my face. They wouldn't be entirely lying.
Interestingly, body image has always been an issue for me. I've always "ranked" people on a scale mostly related to aesthetics (not something I'm proud of). Somewhere in my life travels, judgment morphed into my being really envious of people who were overweight, rocked it, and had badass attitudes alongside. I'm not sure why. I guess something terrible happened to me when I was little, leaving that wee trauma marker stuck in my development somewhere along the "be pretty" place in my brain. I dunno. Sometimes I think I'm being punished for thinking unkind thoughts about overweight people when I was younger. It's true- I wasn't always this wonderful. HA. Again, not proud, but here we are.
So.
Weight.
Image.
"Be thin" = "you're amazing, and the most beautiful."
I want to say "all body types are amazing."
I would love to internalize the truth that "God made us all in His image, and he thinks we're beautiful, regardless of what society says."
I want to.
But I don't.
I'm in a couple of different places. I am these things:
1. envious of women who are plus-sized (which, by the way, sounds horrible. Plus? Jumbo? Bonus? Extra? Why is "little" equated to "FUN sized"...? Why can't bigger be more fun?), gorgeous, and comfortable with it.
2. beyond jealous of women who can sit without tummy blobs. Women who don't have rolls and cellulite and gross pasty white fat dimples, to me, are perfect.
..."perfect"...
See? I decide on someone's perfection based on whether or not they're a. comfy in their own skin or b. skinny in their own skin.
I want to believe the truth that says "it's not about how you look," but I'm not there.
I want to be comfortable in my fat rolls, scars, and mama-bod, but I'm not there, either.
I want to be the mom who is the "do the things, wear the suit, be with your kids in the pool," mom, but not just for social media purposes. I HAVE posted those things, but, image. Didn't mean it. I hate putting on a swimsuit, I hate running around, and I hate being active, if I'm real. I say those things to try to make myself believe them- I WANT to be that mom, but I'm not there.
I want to care enough about my health and wellness to be around for my husband, kids, and groms, but guess what? I'm not there.
I eat horribly. I'd like to say it's because I'm a baker, but it's not that. I just like garbage. I want to be the "eat clean" person I used to be, but I guess that's not the season I'm in right now. Pringles, Milano cookies, cakes, waffles, donuts, all the carbs and all the sugar... that's me. I do love veggies, which is good, but my go-to and my stress-and-emotional-grab-and-shove faves are all things terrible for me. I want sugar. I want bread. I want all the dairy and all the fat.
I eat when I'm sad. I eat when I'm super happy.
Bored? Shove.
Tired? Shove.
Hungry? too lazy to cook decently, so, shove.
And sweet tea? Yes, please. Coke? I'll have a giant crispy cold one from McDs, thanks.
Fries? Um, duh.
Also, speaking of sedentary, at this particular juncture in my almost-old-ageness, I detest exercise. Aaron asks me to walk with him. Nope. Bonham wants to walk to the pond. Nah. Gracie asked me to walk with her before she had gromBaker... no thanks.
And it shows.
Since I got out of the hospital, I've gained more pounds than I even want a scale to tell me, and, as mentioned at the onset of this blog, I feel disgusting. I have zero motivation to do anything, and I hurt all the time. My joints ache, my brain is in perma-fog, I sweat buckets if I walk outside, and I'm mostly a giant crabby appleton.
But, nothing is going to change until I get to the place where the desire to is greater than the short-term reward of the pleasure of sitting on my keister eating ice cream bars @ 10:30pm.
I went outside this morning to plant a flower I've got to use for a cake this weekend. It was, as our southern summers are, stupid humid. I was drenched in a matter of minutes, and I wasn't even really exerting myself. I was pulling weeds, for crying out loud. Yawn.
It was sensational, on one hand. Shoes off, toes in the dirt, close to mama planet. Fingernails caked with mud, not caring. The satisfaction of the pop of the little roots relinquishing their grip on soil; my grip is stronger. Hah.
I was out of breath, though, and there was a steady stream of salty drips from the tip of my nose.
When I realized the salt running down my face was tear-salt more than sweat, it was a gentle steer in the "you've got to do something about this" direction.
I was sobbing, I discovered (which is odd, because I feel like my "cryer" is broken most of the time), and also learned that- among my emotions being in a somewhat bananas state- my physical and emotional status quo are very much in concert with each other, and have yet to tune up.
When a band is out of tune, those of us who are musically inclined, can hear it. Instantly. And the band knows, too, and usually takes a minute to adjust its sound.
My sound is off, I need to take a minute. Turn the pegs to exercise, tighten the food strings. Sharpen up, dial it in.
Create the music.
It's not about image, it's about the feel.
It's about the right notes in the right place, whether they're chords, riffs, runs, rests or arpeggios, and our instruments being in tune.
We can't see the music, what it looks like isn't really what's vital. What is feels like, how it pulsates our souls that's the most important. Vibrations. Waves. Ripples.
I'm not there yet, but I can hear the wrong notes. They're giving me pause, making me take stock. I have a tuner in my cart on Amazon, a subscription to Noom, and appointment to roll around in the dirt.
I'd love to be around long enough to teach my gromBee how good that feels...
Comments
Post a Comment