(yes, I am permitted a few sentences of sheer, unadulterated, sickeningly self-conscious WHINING. Happy Thursday).
I got on the scale this morning.
Heh. Heh. Heh. (Or, Wah Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh, as the case may be.)
I know, I know, it's asking for discouragement, inviting self-loathing, cause for derision.... Man, is it ever.
Full disclosure: I'm both vain and insecure AND -- ordinarily -- only hop on the scale when I feel like I've dropped a few pounds - to re-affirm myself or something. I learned ten years ago that attaching a number to a "yikes, I feel jiggly and bloated" morning is a sure-fire way to generate SERIOUS DISGUST. And when you've had twelve successive months of "yikes, I feel jiggly and bloated, but man was that beer tasty" mornings, about the worst thing you could do is "check to make sure the batteries on the scale still work."
Yeah....they still work.
Cue the discouragement, self-loathing, derision and serious disgust. The validation that, "no, you don't just FEEL like a heftier version of yourself these days, kiddo. You ARE."
I could put a positive spin on this and say, "Hey, I now weigh what I did in high school!" Er, except my high school number was a few bags of sugar MORE than I've weighed in 10 years.
Nothing will send you running back to the Americanos and banishing the lattes like a morning at the cusp of swimsuit season when you look at the scale and think, "hmmm - I've only ever been THAT number before when I hopped on here WHILE HOLDING MY PURSE."
I've heard this is a "natural part of getting older." The whole "metabolism slows," and "jiggle finds new places to call home," and all that jazz is simply to be expected. Welcome to grown-up-hood.
Well, I'm a week from 3-0 and lemme tell ya: these hips are definitely committed to getting older. In fact, they've blazed a trail straight ahead to 46 or so without my permission.
So it's a strange, new world. A world of "huh. there are little rolls of blubber at the top of this bra thing. How bout that!" And "Hmmm! When I wear this cute little waist-cinching belt, now there's a little puddle of TUMMY that plops out under the belt. Wow!"
It's pretty much like I've become Amy Adams in "Enchanted" and I'm twirling and marveling my way through a gloriously baffling new world in which I hardly recognize myself when prancing around in my undies, and am not quite sure what to make of all of this. Like I've fallen out of the mythical land of "Flat Tummy And Thin Upper Arms" and into the harsh reality of "Why Does That Keep Rippling After I've Stopped Moving???"
Maybe I just have to get used to the fact that as a woman of a child-bearing age who sits at a desk all day, does nothing that could be called physical activity (unless re-curling my eyelashes is exercise) and loves her glass or two of wine in the evening, I'm just finally unable to skirt the fact that I'll be wearing that behavior on my tummy. Cheeks. Hips. Knees. You name it. AND, I could further decide that this is to my reproductive advantage - that with some extra meat on the bones, it's biology's way of telling me I'm in good shape to support a little bundle of joy one of these days.
But the inalienable truth here: it's hard when you don't feel pretty. When you'd rather hide yourself under things than appreciate yourself in them. When your primary goal is "conceal, conceal, conceal." When your go-to Fat Jeans are much, much, much too tight and you're probably weeks of a liquid diet (or a good flu) away from fitting into them even snugly. When you pass your reflection in a mirror or window and think...."wow, I used to love seeing my reflection...now.....well - is that REALLY how I look to everyone else?"
At any rate: this isn't a plea for sympathy - it's this sort of compulsive need to just get the complaining out of my system. Whine about it. Admit that I'm not happy about it. Own up to it. Recognize that I'll want to take pictures of myself and some friends at a little birthday shindig next week and thinking, "ew, but there are so many angles I don't like these days - can we just hide me behind a couch or something?" And that's new to me.
So, we'll just call this The Day I Threw Up My Hands and said "Enough already! We're losin those pounds and we're losing em NOW."
Because I would like for 30 to be the advent of the time of my life during which I'm actually in better shape. Would like this new decade to mark the beginning of taking BETTER care of myself, not resting on the doughy laurels of "happy and in love" as though that were some excuse I could use for the next 50 years of my life.
To get all dorky about it: Goodbye Bra Bulge. Goodbye lumpy tummy. Goodbye saddlebags. Goodbye chipmunk cheeks. Goodbye muffin top. You're a pain in my ever-expanding, rather dimply ass and I think it's best we not be friends.
SO. THERE.
(Oh - but surprisingly bigger boobs: you can stick around. I like you well enough.)
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