Recently an old jr high school friend of mine posted she was getting rid of her old dishwasher – ours hadn’t worked in nearly 2 years, and our landlord refused to replace it, which made me refuse to pay for one myself. So the girls and I had been washing dishes by hand for awhile..so when I saw that she was giving it away, I jumped on it, “I’ll send my husband to get it this weekend” I quickly replied, before anyone else could jump on it.
I was so excited, I hadn’t had a chance to tell my husband until the night before, and he asked me if I was ready to put my moving clothes on and I looked at him strangely, “um, what?” He expected me to go with him since I had grown up with her. I quickly made up the excuse that I had things to do (which when don’t Moms have anything to do? Like we are busy all the time). Can’t you just take the neighbor? You help him all the time.” I was thinking of every excuse in the book to not go see an old friend that I hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years.
He quickly jumped to the assumption that I didn’t want to be seen with him – and I laughed. Hello, were married, and you’re all over my Facebook. He continued to push and I finally blurted out, “I’m like 100 more pounds then I was when I saw her last! That’s why I don’t want to go!”
He gave me that look, and said “why do you always care about what everyone else thinks of you? I tell you all the time you’re beautiful and I love you the way you are, and you could care less what I think.”
“That’s not it” I told him, and he just looked at me.
He didn’t get it. A lot of people don’t.
Did I think that my friend, someone I actually considered a friend would judge me because I was fat? Sure I was never super skinny when we were in school, but I sure wasn’t looking like a can of busted biscuits either.
I realized that it wasn’t that I was worried about what my friend, or any of the people I grew up with, thought about me.
It was what I thought about myself.
When I’ve been taking care of myself – from the outside in – I have no problems being social, hoping to run into an old friend, or even just talking to a neighbor.
When I start to feel ashamed of myself; of how I’ve let my weight get out of control, my life out of control – that’s when I turn inwards. I don’t go out, I don’t try to make plans, or do anything where I think there might be anyone I know (which makes it kind of hard when you live and work where you grew up!)
It seems like my weight has a direct connection to the rest of my chaotic life. When my weight gets out of control, so does my house, my work, my blog, my money, everything! It’s hard to get motivated when you feel so down and out.
I’m going to start taking back control.
One step at a time.
One meal at a time – one chore at a time- one bill at a time.
Even though its hard for me to share anything that makes me feel insecure, I have to be real. It isn’t always easy, I’m not always on top of my game.
But I’m gonna’ try.
