As is readily apparent, I've been thinking lots about my weight lately and why it's been such a lifelong struggle. Since I drove to Kansas and back this weekend, I had a lot of time in the car to think (God bless the man who intended portable DVD players, so the kids were well occupied and not begging for stops every 40 minutes).
Anyway, this is far too over-thinking and introspective, but I present now my weekend o' brain busting.
I hate to sound braggie, but I certainly don't suck. I'm tall, I'm pretty, I'm smart, I have a wonderful husband, amazing kids, good family support all the way around, an awesome job, a beautiful home, – If I knew me from the outside, I'd probably hate me. Not that I've had a perfect life in the past by any means, but damn, the here and now is pretty frickin' sweet. Which is probably why, to some extent, I do hate me. It's all too good. I have to have something wrong with me, or I would be unlikable.
On another level, I have to have something wrong with me, because some part of my mind does not believe I deserve all that I have. I'm just the overweight arthritic schlump lisper from my childhood. Or the self-entitled bitch from my misspent 20's. I've always looked to the past and, in any specific era, found things that have been wrong or I've done wrong. I didn't feel like me until my thirties, and now that I'm here, I like it. But I admit I've always felt somehow defective. Now that most of those defects are excised or controlled, I almost feel guilty for having it so good. So am I self-creating this defect as a punishment for bad behavior?
Then there's the idea that maybe I'm thinking I have to have something wrong with me to maintain some sort of cosmic balance - that if I didn't have my weight wrong, then something else terrible would happen to balance all of the good. I'm using my body as a sacrificial lamb to avoid other catastrophes.
Yet another level, I hate to feel ordinary. Which, who doesn't? But I do worry I take it to narcissistic levels at times. Possibly enough to defeat myself. Maybe part of it is I very badly want to be different, to stand out, that I'm afraid I won't if I'm not overweight? I want to be somewhat broken so I have something that sets me apart, that makes people take notice?
I dunno. Probably most likely option 2 or – punishing myself or sacrificing myself in some twisted definition of yin and yang. My family's awesome at that, of thinking we're never good enough for what we have, or thinkging we have to have some kind of balance. Because I know while food gives me a temporary high, it's going to just cause more pain, physical and emotional, in the end, so why keep jamming it down the gullet in stupid, painful quantities?
I also heard a statement this weekend about second chances at life. There's a passage in The Lovely Bones about how the murdered Susie inhabits her best friend's body for a moment so she can kiss her boyfriend, and the pleasure in just the feeling of having lips, and touching those lips to another's. It made me think, maybe the old saying, "Live each day as if it were your last" is backwards. It should be, "Live each day as if you were dead yesterday." How would I treat my body differently in order to get the maximum pleasure out of every moment, and to extend those moments, if I spent 24 hours without one? Would I jam down all the cake I could (gluten free, of course), or would I treat my body like the temple it is, would I be a good steward of my body so that so many other sensations I've missed out on thus far would not be dulled? We're only here a relatively short time, why spend it in self-inflicted, preventable misery? Why am I willing to let temporary pleasures of food interfere with the indelible pleasures of playing in the floor with my children and being able to easily stand up again afterwards? Why do I dull my brain with sugar highs when I could let a sharper mind handle my tasks?
I need to be better to, and for, my body and my mind. I know there are more fulfilling pleasures out there than a melting chocolate.
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