100 fears

It hit me last night that sometimes we are I am afraid to say what I want out loud because once its out I am universally held accountable. Someone will inevitably hear me and remember when whatever I have claimed does not come to pass. Mags once told me that I have the craziest fortune of getting what I want and that things always workout for me. I believe it is due to wanting things I know I can have. I talked to that old friend of mine from college. She told me her very intimate and personal journey through weight loss and we concluded our conversation with her telling me I could do it and saying she was there if I needed her. It was clear to me after our conversation 3 things: 1. I wanted to lose 100 lbs. 2. I was not going to be able to do it in the same way she did it. 3. This was going to be insanely hard for many different reasons.

I debated back and forth over making my goal public knowledge. BA asked me how I even had that much to lose. And I'll admit, its a very ambitious goal. And I believe that losing that much weight on my 5'9" frame will be highly significant but its what I want. I had been struggling to imagine myself that small; to see myself as long and lean rather than voluptuous and curvy. But, when I look at the things that appeal to me it is strength and flexibility. I want a body that can move. One with more freedoms. To make a very important distinction, I do not see more freedom in a new body...its not a dependency. Its a burning desire to feel congruent. A smolder that has lit into a small flame.

I will have to write my own way. Unlike me one year ago, being seen is not as big a burden to carry. I am seen here. And perhaps that is one of my intrinsic rewards of attending a school where 98% of the population (literally) doesn't look like me. I can go to the gym. I know how to life, I know how to train. I have always known. That is not the struggle, which kind of makes me feel bad because I've squandered this knowledge. But its time to make use of it and not be afraid of failing.

Losing 100lbs will get me in touch with parts of myself I've yet to discover or fully explore. This coming from a person who knows herself insanely well. I know this because it already has. Just the decision.  To voice it, to say it to claim that yes I actually have 100lbs to lose and yes, I am telling you making myself vulnerable to critics and those who do not understand what it means to have that particular problem. People can be very judgmental. And then I think of the one person who may benefit or be helped and its very clear to me that I can't keep it a secret. I will have to blog about it. Because this is my space, my altar. Everything is laid out here.

I was telling BFFT's fiancé, the future Mrs., that you just get to a point in life when you stop allowing yourself to be burdened with the possible judgment of others. Its not absolute, but the time between "what will they say" and "who cares, fuck it" gets shorter. It took me roughly a week to say fuck it. To say right now my life needs to change because I do not have diabetes, nor do I ever want it. I hate my arms but I love how they support me in downward facing dog. I love my legs even though they make it hard to buy jeans. My spirit is at peace, strong and quiet she can climb run jump and fly...and I want to be like her.

So some people catalogue weight loss by showing before and afters with #s in lbs and inches and such...but to me that isn't the hard part. The hard part is the emotional work. How did I get to be as heavy as I am? And how can I learn a new way to cope? If I told you I wore a size 18 but want to wear a 6...you can't understand that that means I want to know that I was burdened by gifts I couldn't yet comprehend. That I just wanted to feel held, and so I built the comfort around my Self in the form of a body. That somehow standing out and being brilliant, funny, beautiful and alone is far more puzzling than being single and overweight. That it takes time to get (truly get) that people are responsive to the beauty that they see which is equal to the beauty that you are willing to show. 

So the only # I am concerned about is 100. My work will reside in positive self work and making sure I am in tune with confronting fears. Making sure I do not bully myself in the gym or the mirror. Giving myself affirmations that I can do this, I deserve this, and I am fighting for resolution and self reconciliation. And as this decision is made and affirmed via this public forum, I am at peace.

~The Beginning