Few more thoughts....

[Guest guest]

I think my lowest point this past weekend was when my friend insisted on

stopping by a boutique she'd spotted. Of course I didn't have to go in with her

but I didn't really think through what would result...

As you might guess there were no clothing items in the store I could even come

close to fitting into - and, adding insult to injury, a very skinny woman shot

me a look when I stepped through the doorway. (Anyone here ever been told by a

store clerk " we don't have anything in here to fit you honey " ?)

My friend tried on several things while I wandered around pretending to look at

purses and scarves while actually struggling with the voices of my internalized

fat hating squad screaming at me about how dumpy I looked compared to the skinny

women in that store.

I did manage to insert a few thoughts about size not being the value of the

person, but it was a painful reminder of why I've worked so hard to diet myself

into acceptance. My entire day wasn't ruined - but I certainly did hit an old,

familiar and painful wall in that speciality store. By the way, my speciality

stores look very different and don't have politely snotty men with standard

poodles running them... not that I feel resentful or anything...

Loving my body as it is and giving up my idealized images of how a person

(including me) should look is huge. It's huge because my sense of self value

has centered around what I weigh and how I look or don't look as long as I can

remember.

Now, ever so dimly, I'm realizing that having been so obsessed with body size

and with diet/binge thoughts for many years, I've never spent the time and

energy developing my interests.

My innate gifts languish on the sidelines of my life, my goals have been long

superceded with self-consciousness and self-hate and my dreams are long

fogotten. Sometimes now when I go to bed at night and all defenses are down, I

feel a huge wave of deep sadness that almost overwhelms me. My life has been

centered around the failure to be a certain size for so long that I don't really

know who I am beyond that unachieved goal.

So... in sum... there's the dirty look from the skinny woman, the need for every

American woman to wear single-digit sized clothing and the reality of a life

that's waiting for me to start inhabiting it for real this time.

That's it - I'm just going to sit with that for a while. Thanks for listening.

Sandarah IE since 8/11