July 11, 2006

• Battle, Battle Battle ... When Will the War be Over ?

  
  

  I'm excited about my new job.  Very excited, and also a little nervous and intimidated.  I got a call last week saying that a meeting has been arranged for Friday morning with me and the Board of Directors and CFO of a large Credit Union.  So my first thought of course was that I would need to lose a bazillion pounds immediately.  And my second thought was that I need new clothes.

  
  

  I really do need new clothes.  I haven't bought much over the past three years, and unfortunately, most of what I've purchased ... well, in the words of my best friend, all my clothes are from the "Mommy" line.

  
  

  So I went shopping. 

  
  

  It was not a pretty sight.  I struck out totally at three different stores.  I finally wound up at Dillards where you would think that they would have business suits out the wazoo, but no.  At least ... not in my size.  See I'm five feet tall.  That's it.  I NEED a  __Women's Petite.  If it's not a WP, I have to hem the sleeves of the jacket, and the legs of the pants, and probably alter other parts as well. 

  
  

  They had WP suits.  They had them for women who are three to six sizes larger than me, or for women three to six sizes smaller than me.  They had nothing in my size.  I gave my size to the salesperson, and she kept bringing me things that were at least two sizes too big.  I politely handed them back to her twice, but finally because she was so insistent I tried on a pair of the pants.  To say that I looked like a clown is an understatement.  They bagged from my butt to my knees.  After that, she at least tried a little harder to bring things that were the size I requested. 

  
  

  My best friend (THANK GOD for text messaging or I would have felt entirely alone and panicked by this whole process) tells me that this just means I'm a popular size.  And now that I've had a couple days to think about it, its starting to feel like that's as good an explanation as any.  But the day it happened (this was on Sunday afternoon) I came home hating my body. 

  
  

  I hated my roundness and my lack of height. 

  
  

  There's nothing I can do about my height.

  
  

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  I remember the promises I've made.  And as ephemeral as that seems, those promises are my salvation.  If I can't do what I've said, then what do I have left to believe about myself?   But sometimes, this fighting makes me bleed, and I have a couple battle scars.

  
  

  I came home that day with no thought other than punishing my "fatness."

  
  

  I am a lucky person though.  Not just my best friend (who as usual was two steps ahead of me and had feared this very thing) but two other friends who had no idea what I was struggling through, came to my rescue.  They told me the truth about healthy behavior, and about the folly of judging myself by the size of my clothes.  They offered me love and affirmation.  And they told me that  I'd think more clearly in a day or two, but to be gentle with myself in the moment.

  
  

  I love the poetry of Mary Oliver and she has a piece that has nothing to do with body distortion or eating disorders, but it comforts me to read these words ...

  
  

  Wild Geese
  
  You do not have to be good.
  You do not have to walk on your knees
  for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
  You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
  Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
  Meanwhile the world goes on.
  Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
  are moving across the landscapes,
  over the prairies and the deep trees,
  the mountains and the rivers.
  Meanshile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
  are heading home again.
  Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
  the world offers itself to your imagination,
  calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
  over and over announcing your place
  in the family of things.

  
  

   

  
  

  Isn't that a wonderful poem?  And a wonderful line "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves ..."

  
  

  I love feeling healthy.  I love being able to do things and move my body in ways that I couldn't when I weighed ... much more than I do now.  And the soft animal of my body doesn't deserved to be punished because of the number on the label of an article of clothing.  Together, this soft animal and I are battling our way out of a thick dark forest. 

  
  

   

  
  

  PS - with the help of Weight Watchers, I have lost a total of 8 pounds this summer ... we won't think about how many I have to go for goal. 

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 10:24 pm
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