I am not usually a person who likes to call attention to anything negative about myself. It’s not that I don’t criticize myself internally for countless things; it’s just that I see no benefit in pointing them out to other people. So this post will be a departure from my usual ways while I try to express something that’s been on my mind for quite a while now.
I am five feet tall. As a teenager and young adult, I had a great figure and wore a size five. But with my first pregnancy, I was so excited about it and so anxious to “show” that I allowed myself to gain without even attempting to keep it under control, and weight has been a struggle for me ever since. I’d say right now I’m about sixty pounds too heavy.
When I met my husband, I had already had two children (one who passed away and another who was a toddler then, a young adult now). So Brian never saw me at my best. He first knew me as an chubby 30-year-old with an especially ugly vertical c-section scar. I was so in dread of him seeing my ruined body for the first time, but he loved me then and he still loves me today. He has never once called me a name (not even passed off as a joke), made a cutting remark, or suggested a diet. He accepts me exactly as I am, even though the aging process is contributing even more unattractive components to my physical self.
But so often, when I’m alone, about to step into the shower, I catch sight of myself in the bathroom mirror and I want to say to him, “I’m so sorry.” I’m not anything so nice as “curvy;” I’m misshapen with a rear end (formerly my favorite body part) like a wad of chewed bubble gum. Brian’s usually not home at the time of morning when this happens, so I have thoughts of emailing him or calling him to apologize for myself. I don’t do it only because he’d scoff and tell me I was crazy and point out that he is imperfect as well. But you who are not involved, I hope you can understand me. This mirror-moment is not a moment of self-pity or of me wanting him to assure me that I look fine. I really don’t look fine, and I know it, and for the man who made a promise to be intimate with nobody else but me, I am sincerely so sorry that this is the body I have to offer him.
Some of you, right now, are yelling at your screen, “Then DO something about it!” I know; it sounds so simple, doesn’t it? I feel the exact same way when I look at people who can’t manage their houses—oh my gosh, how simple is it to keep up with laundry, take the trash out and make the bed? It’s easy! Or, hmm, maybe it’s just easy to me because the effort expended leads so quickly to a consequence that gives me great enjoyment. I like to look around and see a tidy house, so I clean up. Maybe some people feel great after eating a salad and climbing the stairmaster, whereas I’d just be irritable and exhausted.
So it seems pretty clear that I am not naturally drawn to being a gym rat, and i’m so far past my prime now that if I were single, I’d probably just buy myself some big ol’ clothes and just say “forget it!” But I care about Brian and what I am to him. I know he loves my heart and soul, but shouldn’t it be worth any amount of sacrifice and effort for me to put them in a prettier package? I often think about this: if anything (God forbid) were to happen to him, I know my emotional makeup well enough to know that the first thing I would do is lose interest in eating, and all the weight would drop off. If I could do it then, why not do it while he’s alive and with me to enjoy it? I also sometimes think, (not that he would, but) suppose he got himself a girlfriend. The stress, the anxiety, the maddening fear of “what’s she got that I ain’t got” would have me wearing out the treadmills all over town. So why not do it now, before something like that happens? I don’t understand it myself.
I’ll end with an anecdote from a TV show… it may have been Dr. Phil from a while back. There was a husband who was just slightly overweight, but his wife was absolutely livid about it. It was brought to her attention that he had eaten a doughnut at work, and I was shocked at how infuriated she was with the poor, hapless guy. Her face suggested that she hated and was utterly disgusted by him. “How could you do that?” she demanded. When I try to get into that woman’s head and understand what was the huge deal about a doughnut, the only comparison I can come up with is to think how I might react in a financial crisis. If we were flat broke, desperate, counting every nickel, and Brian came home after making some fairly innocent but totally unnecessary purchase, I might feel a bit like the doughnut wife. It’s not the doughnut that counts…it’s the idea that she was trying so hard to move him in one direction and he deliberately went in the other one. It made her crazy.
So I’m wondering if I could refocus my thinking somehow…to get myself to believe that every calorie is important…not in and of itself, so much, but in relation to the direction I want to go. I’d like my husband to be not just content with me, but excited about me. Proud of me, even.
I do have one bit of news to share: this fall, I expect to be a participant in a clinical weight loss study, using an experimental drug. Sounds scary, I know. But maybe it will be a good thing. Comments are welcome, and prayers even more so.
Recent Comments