In which I write about how fat and sad and broken I am. Again.

I saw the prettiest girl this weekend.

I guess I was rude. I was sort of staring at her. I didn't really mean to. I just saw this girl and I thought, "Oh, her hair is pretty. I like her shirt. I wonder where she got that scarf?" and while I was thinking all the these things she turned around and our eyes locked.

She gave me that look. I know that look, and you probably do too.

"Please don't judge me."

She didn't have to say a word. Her eyes pleaded with me.

I noticed then she was sitting with a lady who looked like her. Probably her mom. They both had bigger bottoms that ladies sometimes like to have. No thigh gap. Bigger hips. Smaller boobs. I hadn't even noticed before. Not until she gave me that look.

I smiled at her. She smiled back and then looked away. I wanted to go to her and tell her I wasn't staring at her because of her hips or her butt or any other body part she might find fault with. That I just thought she was lovely and I was a little jealous of how perfectly her hair curled and maybe I wanted to know where she got her scarf (and that I promise I'm not a weirdo). I didn't though. I didn't say anything at all.

This makes me sad. I'm sad because so many women hate their bodies and fear that other people are always judging them.  I'm sad because this is exactly the way I feel. All. The. Time. I compare myself constantly to other women. Constantly. I just met a lady this morning in my neighborhood and she was so nice and friendly and the whole time I kept going through this mental checklist I have. "Okay, I have better hair. She has nicer teeth. I think I'm probably a size smaller than her, but she had perkier boobs." Endless. Forever. On and on and on in my head. She was just a nice lady who was talking to me about my dog and her dog and I was running through this ridiculous list of perceived failures. For what? To make myself even sadder, I guess.

I'm sad that my gorgeous, perfect, brilliant, fantastic daughter said to me the other day, "I shouldn't eat that. It has too many carbs." I'm sad because she heard that out of my very own mouth. My daughter. If I had my daughter's figure I would walk around naked all the time. And she's worried about eating a piece of bread.

I'm sad that the girl I saw, the pretty girl with the beautiful scarf, was worried I was judging her. Maybe she's busted her tail for months or years to no avail. Maybe she's lost more than 100lbs and she can't even enjoy it because she still has so far to go. By looking at her mom I can see she did not have the type of genetics that would generate a flat belly without some serious, hardcore effort. Yet, her mom was a pretty lady with an easy smile. Happy and confident. Maybe her mom has gotten it by now.

I don't know.

What I do know? I'm sick of it.

I am sick of all of it. I'm sick of hating myself. I'm sick of thinking I'm a failure all the time. I'm sick of working so hard and never being okay with where I am. I'm sick of thinking about the flab on my upper arms. I'm sick of comparing myself to other people and always feeling like I fall short.

I'm not saying losing weight or being healthy or fit is easy for anyone. Maybe there are some people for whom this is effortless. I don't know those people. If they exist, I am jealous of them.

I look at Instagram every day, at pictures of people who lift, who eat clean, who have never had a carb in their lives. I guess they are supposed to inspire me, and in some ways they do. It seems like it would just be easier to be that person. That person who just is. Who doesn't have to think about it or try. Who doesn't just want to sit on the couch watching Judge Judy after a long day and instead wants to go run six miles or lift two hundred pounds. I've been trying to force myself to be this person and it's not good.

I look at body acceptance blogs, and writings by beautiful, positive, women of all sizes. Those are supposed to motivate me too, but they usually don't. I usually think, "Why can't I feel that way about myself? I feel that way about her...why am I different?" That's also not good.

It's not good to sit on the couch either, and February and the snow and my job and my life didn't help get me motivated.  It's not good to just eat whatever you want, especially if what you want is Cheetos. It's not good to give up. I never give up, even when I probably should. I'm stubborn tenacious.

People say, "Oh you should try this!" or "This is the only thing that works!" and you know, that's okay. I have tried things that make me feel better and I do, sincerely, appreciate when people give me advice when it comes from the right place. But nothing is perfect. Nothing is right for everyone at every time. And nothing so far has made me feel like I'm okay.

That's the thing I guess. Self-care is important and I'm not really doing much of it. You insult my child or her body and I'd rip your freaking throat out. Say anything about my precious little arthritic Ginger and her walking and I'll haunt your freaking dreams. I cannot stand when people insult each other, and vehemently defend against body-shaming when I see it online or in person. I very quickly and easily recognized things in the young lady this weekend that she maybe didn't even see in herself. Yet, I call myself fat all the time, hate looking in the mirror, and recently told my dad a long story about how the people at the local plus size shop hate me because I was at the moment I was in there the thinnest one in the room and so I just don't fit in anywhere because the skinny people don't like me because I'm not skinny enough and the fat people don't like me because I'm not fat enough either. (On a related note: sorry about my stories dad. I'm working on being more interesting)

This morning after my walk I sat down at my computer, opened up my water bottle and thought to myself, "Maybe I don't need to lose more weight. Maybe I just need to stop hating myself."

Then, I opened Facebook and I saw this cartoon:

Yeah.


Maybe just that would help.

Losing

A good friend of mine had a miscarriage not long ago. I went from sad to pissed off about it much quicker than usual and I'm trying to figure out why.

Last night I thought about it a lot and the usual things didn't make sense to me. Oh sure, that one girl from the Teen Mom who is on heroin and can't keep custody of her first kid is pregnant again by some guy she knew for about twenty minutes when he impregnated her (it's tru luv I'm sure) and yes, that is annoying. Far be it from me to dictate anyone's reproductive choices, but it does sting a bit when someone publicly declares they've had an abortion one day and then a month later they are pregnant with another baby, presumably because they like the dad of the second baby more. For now.

But honestly? Things like that have happened forever and they will likely continue to happen forever. If you've ever been in the midst of horrible baby fever and happened upon some b-hole at the Harris Teeter smacking her two-year old because they wouldn't stop singing "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" then you've had similar feelings I'm sure. People will get pregnant for any number of reasons. Some of those reasons are better than others. Opinions are very subjective on that topic. It annoys me far more than anything else when people willingly, knowingly become pregnant and then constantly complain about their children. But again, I try to keep that inside. It's not their fault that five years ago I would have devised a plan to sneak into their home at night and kidnap those children. And who knows, maybe their kids are jerks and it really is torturous to have to feed them dinner every night. I have no way of knowing.

I've been trying really hard lately not to get up on my hind legs about certain things. A friend of mine posted on Facebook recently about abortion and people got their panties in such a twist that I'm sure it hurt them for days. One lady in particular was exceptionally vexed, as she had endured a miscarriage and HOW DARE ANYONE HAVE AN ABORTION WHEN SHE WAS SUFFERING. I feel her pain, truly. Within two weeks of my last miscarriage a total of six people (four friends and two relatives) announced their pregnancies. It sucks. It really does. I might have cried a little bit and said some swear words and maybe ate too much ice cream for a few days. But honestly? None of those pregnancies in any way caused my miscarriage. They didn't get the baby I was supposed to have. And the girl who was livid about someone having an abortion didn't lose because someone else did. I hope someday she can come to peace about that. Everything is not about you and the baby you lost, although I know it does feel that way sometimes. Sometimes it feels like it's going to swallow you whole. I get that.

Despite my careful evaluation of my personal feelings, my friend having a miscarriage has made me furious. I cried and swore. I didn't eat ice cream because I'm not eating ice cream these days, but still. The pattern was there.

I think, maybe, it's because when you or someone you love has a miscarriage, there is nothing you can say that will make it okay for that person. People sometimes try and they end up saying horrible things like, "God needed that baby more than you did" or "It's in a better place" or "You're young, you can just try again!" and my personal favorite, "Maybe you just weren't supposed to have a baby with Jason".  None of those things help and one of them in particular makes me want to stab people in the face.

I am pissed off about all the unknown things too. It's always amazing to me that two people can get together in the back of someone's truck on a Friday night behind the football field and somehow manage to get pregnant because for other people it's the most complicated thing in the world. For other people, getting pregnant is not actually a problem, but staying pregnant? Whole other story. Oh and the best part of all of this? There is very little rhyme or reason to it. Some people have risk factors. Some people have an accident. Sometimes, things just happen. Sometimes there is no reason. No excuse. No way to know. All you have is a big bunch of questions and Dr. Google to guide you. There's a lot of crap out there, and a lot of it makes you feel even worse about yourself. I know this from personal experience, unfortunately.

How can you make sense of something that 9 times out of 10 doesn't make a darn bit of sense?

I guess above all, this is making me furious because I love my friend. Because she's a great mom to the daughter she already has. Because I feel like she's been through enough crap in this life and maybe she should get to experience all good things from now on. Because I love her. Because she's awesome. Because she doesn't deserve to have that kind of pain, ever.

Because I'm tired, so very tired, of good people losing.

I got nothing but love for ya, baby.

Last night, at dinner (notice a theme lately?):

Me, to daughter: Girl Child, who is your Valentine?

Her: Oh, I don't know. I'm don't know if I'll get a Candygram at school tomorrow or not.

Jason: I'm your Valentine!

Her: Aww. Thanks dad.

Me, to son: Who is your Valentine?

Him, barely looking up from the food he was inhaling: Is that tomorrow?

Me: This is why you can't get chicks.



The end.

We're all learning.

Tonight at dinner:

Me, to family: So, TiVo picked up an episode of The Maury show.

Jason: I wonder why? Oh yeah. Because it knows you enjoy crap.

Me, ignoring Jason: ANYWAY, so there was this one girl? And she was 2000% sure that Big Pimpin' Willie was the father? And it turns out he actually was the father? And after Maury was like,"YOU ARE THE FATHER!" she legit fell to her face and did this amazing, elaborate twerking thing.

Children: *laughter*

Husband: *has no idea what twerking is, but refuses to ask because then we'll know he doesn't know*

Me: Seriously, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I don't even know how she did it. Somehow she managed to move her entire butt but not the rest of her body. It was awesome.

Son, to me: I can do that.

Me: What?

Son: I can twerk. Wall twerk.

Me, alarmed: Okay.


After dinner my as my children were doing the dishes:

Me, to son: Okay, show me.

Son: What?

Me: You can twerk? Show me.

Him: Oh. Oh God no.

Me: Good.



Two years ago? He would have totally shown me.

The boy is learning shame.



I'm so proud.

Teller of Unpopular Truths

I am supposed to be in considerably warmer spot right now (not Hell). My annual company meeting is going on and alas, Mother Nature and her drunk ass caused every single flight I managed to get routed onto to be subsequently canceled. I'm home and despite the ice that rained down all day, I'm fairly warm. I spent most of the morning listening to a live feed of the event.

My son (who was home from school due to the aforementioned ice) thought the music which played between speakers (presumably as they climb the stairs to the stage) was particularly hilarious. "Because your company is so hip!" he scoffed. You just don't even know, kid. You don't even know.

We were talking about the hilarity of this and how last year at the same event I enthusiastically fist-pumped, Stephanie The Situation Snowe, during some of the more upbeat songs. No one, absolutely no one, was impressed by my skillz and my daughter, very innocently asked, "What song did they play while you were walking up to speak mom?"

After I laughed so hard that I'm fairly sure I broke a rib, I explained that oh no. No one wants any of this. Even my husband helpfully pointed out last night, "You have no friends except Ginger!" No one wants to hear anything I would have to say.

My son said, "Can you imagine? Mom would get on stage and be all like, 'This sucks. This also sucks. Here's all the ways I personally failed last year. This is wrong. You suck. I don't like you. You need to get off your dead butt and do something for yourself for once. You're okay, but don't cross me. You, over there? You suck. Any questions? Okay, bye!' And then smile really big, drop the mic, and walk off the stage."

(It's probably unnecessary to say this, but he also gesticulated wildly while telling this story)

Because yeah.

That apple and this tree are sitting side by side. On the couch. Watching Futurama reruns and smack talking.