My right hip has been hurting me since the 10k.  I was able to run and work out, so I just figured (hoped) it would go away.  Yesterday I begged my neighbor to watch the kids so I could squeeze in a three mile run.  Approximately .25 miles into it, I had to stop and walk.  My hip felt like it was going to come flying off my leg and explode into a bunch of tiny bony bits. 

I’ll admit it:  my frustration level bubbled up and over.  I sat in my neighbor’s kitchen and said, “Please, what next?  Not the running!  PLEASE NOT THE RUNNING!”  It’s not just the exercise factor; it’s a mental thing, and having goals to work toward make life easier.  If I can pick off this target, I can pick off the next.  It mirrors my life:  if I can get to the next hurdle, and through it, the next one won’t be so bad.  Or painful. 

A friend recommended a local sports medicine doc.  I called and begged for an appointment today.  They squeezed me in at 1.  I was initially turned off by the plethora of sales stuff out there - shoes that firm your butt by walking?  Yep, and I’ve got a diet pill that will allow you to eat cake and donuts and hot dogs and still lose 10 pounds a week.  The doc also conveniently gives Botox injections and prescriptions for Latisse - the eyelash lengthening drug.  I was confused - was I in a plastic surgeon’s office, or a sports medicine office?  Wait, it’s sports medicine because there on the wall are the PT beds and balls and some weird looking treadmill thing. 

I was taken aback by the odd reptilian color of my doctor’s eyes.  They were a blazing green.  I found I couldn’t look straight at them.  I’m hoping they were colored contacts.  The exam was quick.  Not sure if the hip is bursitis or a stress fracture.  Ankle is missing a ligament; nothing can be done about that other than to strengthen the muscles around the bone by standing on one foot as much as possible and balancing.  A cortisone shot was quickly ordered up and I was told to stock up on Naproxen and take 2 twice a day for inflammation

Never having had a cortisone shot before, I was a little nervous.  First she tried injecting it into my hip while I stood up.  When I nearly passed out and started to sway, she decided to remove the needle and put me on the table.  The needle went back in; so did the cortisone.  During the shot experience, I asked the question, “If I have bursitis, why now?”  The answer? 

“Our creator meant for your body to be 120, 125 pounds max.” 

Blink blink. 

I looked up at her.  “Did I tell you I’ve lost 35 pounds in the last year?” 

“No,” she said.  “But that will make the next 25 even easier to lose.”

Blink, blink. 

“I’ve been stuck at this weight for a while.  I was thinking I’d like to lose another 10-15.  I’m never going to look like I did in college or before kids, and I’m completely OK with that.” 

“I need to set you up with my nutritionist.”

Blink, blink. 

“I do Weight Watchers.  Works great for me, when I work it.”

“We have a great nutritionist here.”

“Like I said, no thanks.  I have a therapist, a psychiatrist, and a general practitioner.”  Unsaid:  and even if I DID want a nutritionist, I’d go to someone who specializes in my particular needs, not some random Sports Medicine person. 

I was sent out with a script for PT and some massage therapy and told to follow up in two weeks. 

The elevators had glass doors.  30 minutes before, I was feeling pretty good about my accomplishments.  At the present moment, all I could see were the problem areas of my body.  I could still see her collarbones jutting out as she stabbed the needle into my hip and probably stared disgustedly at my love handles.  Perhaps in her world, everyone should look like a starving triathlete.  Maybe it’s just the nature of the job. 

Either way, hearing what basically amounted to “Fat Girls Don’t Run” was not particularly inspirational. 

I’m going to get my PT and massage Thursday, and then I’m finding a new doc for the follow up. 

“It’s day for self-flagellation,” says me. 

“Okay,” I respond.  “Let’s get this party started.”

Run faster, run longer, run harder.  Take all of the frustration burning up your lungs and expel it through sweat.  No one judges sweat or thinks of it as weakness, not even you. 

Later in the day, there are pictures of women who are prettier, smarter, thinner than me.  Or so says me.  Then a list of all the reasons I am unlovable, undesirable, unhealthy, unwanted.  There is a list of words, all beginning with the prefix un-.  I take all of my family’s guilt and heap it in one heavy pile on a plate the size of my head.  I wallow in it, roll around for good measure.  I take random phrases my children say and turn them into myself.  My fault.  Destroyer of lives, homewrecker, woman with no foresight.  It doesn’t matter if malice wasn’t involved, I say, looking around at the wreckage of my personal plane crash. 

I ask myself why after years of fighting do I still struggle with the same things I always have.  Self-image, security, my failure to see the good in myself because I don’t have a searchlight bright enough to see through the bad.  I know it’s a weakness. Even my weaknesses have weaknesses.  It’s a never-ending circular spiral of crap.  I despise egomaniacs, arrogance, snotty people.  Stands to reason, says me, that I should also despise their flipside.  The punishers of self, those who can’t focus on the good in themselves instead of their shortcomings.  Perhaps my impatience in general stems from inability to give myself a break. 

I have this conversation with myself for a good portion of the day.  The lowest common denominator is always my physical image, because it’s something I can control and it’s something I can beat into submission.  Years ago I stumbled across a picture of someone’s ex-girlfriend.  I loved the someone, but seeing his ex made me want to crawl into bed and stay there.  It’s been 18 years since I happened across that picture, but I can still tell you exactly what it looked like. She was stretched across a couch, one arm tucked behind her and one thin hand thrown above her head.  Her hair was tousled and she stared into the lens of the camera, long before digitals became the standard.  Her power came through the glossy paper; she smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. The corners of her lips pulled up very slightly; she was confident and she knew that she was beautiful.  She had dirty blond hair streaked with black, because then it was cool to have bad hair coloring.  She was painfully thin.  Even through the denim of her tiny jeans, her hipbones jutted out and one was partially exposed.  Her shirt was slightly raised on one side - a simple white tee.  Her skin was pale but creamy and she wore no shoes or socks.  Her toes were painted a dark red but the nail polish had begun to chip.  Her fingernails were long.  Her eyes were hazel.  Looking at her, I knew that my someone could never love me like he loved this beautiful and strange person on the couch captured in chemicals and paper. 

Throughout the years, this picture has come back to me at odd times, including yesterday.  This woman became what my vision of beauty was.  It’s interesting I would choose a 5’ 9” woman to mark myself against; I’ve never worn size 0 jeans in my life, and I’ll never blow past the 5’ 1” mark.  It is impossible for me to change my eye color or my darker skin.  I am not built like a ballet dancer; I’m built like a gypsy meant to have children and work in the fields.  I’m sturdy, mule-like, beautiful in my own clumsy way, but there is no amount of plastic surgery or starvation that will make me look like her.  Finding beauty in all things opposite of me is an unbearable theme in my life. 

I am sick to death of my lowest common denominator.  I’m sick to death of having this same conversation.  To my younger friends still struggling with body image and eating disorders:  I am sorry that I can’t set a better example and show you that years of working on these things mean success.  It does get easier - more natural - but to still struggle with the same issues while teetering on the edge of 40 years is both sad and truthful.  It really is a lifelong struggle once you give yourself over to your own denominator. 

Today is a better day. 

I remember playing with my friend Amy.  She had a Ken doll; I did not.  We spent hours making houses out of shoeboxes and cardboard so that Ken and Barbie could live in sin (we would always forget to have their wedding first).  I was fascinated by all the stuff they could have:  barstools made out of old deodorant, a store-bought swimming pool, a stable for their horses, a hideous pink canopied bed.  That game never got old.  Hours were spent rearranging the furniture, or moving Ken and Barbie somewhere new (like into the closet, which I guess is akin to moving to the suburbs). 

In adulthood, I’ve spent hours and years rearranging the furniture.  One of my favorite verses comes from a Jonatha Brooke/Story song:

My mother moved the furniture
When she no longer moved the man
We thought nothing of it at the time
She painted walls, painted smiles,
Checked herself in the mirror one more time,
Then yoked her heart to a whim.

In the past, I’ve been known to rearrange rooms of furniture or rip down the paint to symbolize a change in my life.  I get bored with furniture placement and colors easily, and am forever shifting things around to suit my saturnine personality. 

Since I moved back into the house after my release from Poplar Springs, I’ve been playing house.  First I was so exhausted I just wanted to forget everything that had happened and write it off as an unwakeable nightmare.  When I couldn’t wake up from it, I moved to the third floor.  I actually am trying to pretend it’s like an apartment, and put things in the drawers and closets.  It’s the closest I can get to a physical separation at this moment in time.  Although I know this is what’s best for the children - and the least disruptive to my sleep and ability to keep up with the house - it’s hard on Mike and it’s hard on me.  Although I am the anti-Barbie and he certainly is no Ken, I feel like we’re playing house, keeping up appearances. 

We will be in limbo and it will be for a while.  We start marriage counseling next week.  Those who know would agree I’m not very patient. I am an incredibly decisive person - decisive to a fault.  Once my mind is made up, it normally takes something akin to a Mack truck hitting me to chage it.  This “limbo” period is difficult for me on many levels, because I cannot afford to assume my mind is made up and I must work to stay open when all I want to do is shut down into a very small steel box of a girl. 

There’s so much joy in between the bits of sheer hell.  Allowing myself to be helped and supported by my family, by my friends.  Spending an hour sipping overpriced lattes with a friend, recounting our experiences, holding them up for each other to compare.  Sitting quietly in the moonlight on the screened porch when everyone else is asleep.  Listening to other people’s sad and happy stories.  Tentatively poking my heart every once in awhile, just to see if it’s still beating.  Talking to Mike before I realize how strange I feel around him, like my husband is a stranger.  I tweeted the other day:  “it’s a weird sensation when the most familiar things feel scary.”  This is my life now.  Those things that used to give me comfort now make me anxious.  Half the time I’m frantically digging around inside, asking myself, “How do I really feel about this?  Is this good? bad? indifferent?”  Most of the time I can’t even answer the basic questions. 

At therapy on Thursday I had a major epiphany.  I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner, but better late than never.  Mike asked me in a letter if I thought my weight loss had anything to do with all the stuff I’m going through.  He thought that perhaps I was losing weight so I’d feel happier, and when I did, and wasn’t, it caused a depression.  I immediately said no. 

As my therapist and I discussed something else, I mentioned my weight loss.  And we started talking about it.  I literally felt like a Jesus postcard - you know, the kind with the dark clouds being parted by a shining beam of light.  It was all very clear.  For years, I’ve been pushing down all my emotions with food.  Whether I was starving or eating, it didn’t matter.  I don’t use drugs or drink to numb myself, but I certainly do use food, and I have really been numb since I was pregnant with Lily.  Because Weight Watchers is really a lifestyle change, and because it makes you eat properly, I couldn’t abuse food any longer.  As soon as the food was gone, all of the feelings started to come out. I didn’t notice it right away, but they crept up on me from the farthest corners of my mind.  With nothing to keep them at bay, they blew through their containments and exited through my mouth and my tear ducts.  So yes, Mike, in retrospect:  yes, my weight loss has something to do with all this mess I’ve handed you on a platter. 

My first foray into therapy was way back in 1990/1991.  I was at University of Michigan, surrounded by people with PhDs and professional certifications and Birkenstocks.  It seemed natural, almost compulsory, that I end up in therapy while living in Ann Arbor. I was taking a class on Freudian-inspired literature.  I was somewhat morose. I spent more time in coffee houses than bars, and I had lots of dysfunctional relationships.  Bring on the therapy!

I got lucky, though. I ended up with Rachel, and she dutifully listened to my privileged white-girl rants about my life, relationship and parents.  Oh, poor me, living in an apartment paid for by my parents, attending great school on their dime, and taking classes called (I kid you not) “Math for Poets”.  (side note: that class *may* be explanation for my inability to solve simple equations)

In all seriousness, I was involved in very bizarre and long-standing relationship with a guy.  It was fraught with drama, late-night phone calls and lies.  Lots of lies.  Mix in my weight at the time (a hefty 98 pounds) and too much time spent with head in books and you had a girl in need of head-shrinking. 

Those early day of therapy were heady to say the least.  We criss-crossed my childhood, the origins of my food weirdness, and dissected my relationship with aforementioned dude in minute detail.  I told her things I had never even told myself, then analyzed them with her.  I wrote incessantly.  I was journaling an average of 10 pages a day.  The proverbial crap was pouring out of me, and I felt free.  She thought I had clinical depression.  I got free medical treatment at U of M’s hospital and began my long love affair with Zoloft sometime in 1991.  Between Rachel and the medication, my life literally changed.  I didn’t end my relationship with the guy for another 7 years, but I was able to call it what it was, and I was no longer able to delude myself into thinking it was something else.  I stopped abusing food and my body.  I cut unhealthy people out of my life.  I took my medication dutifully.  I tried to be a better person.  I started dating a normal guy (i.e., one without another girlfriend) and generally spent a very happy senior year living the life in Ann Arbor.  Political protests - the annual Hash Bash - the Objectivists study group - lunches spoken entirely in German - Women’s Literature studies - oh my god what a huge nerd I was. 

After graduation, I took a road trip with the normal boyfriend.  When I came back, I got a job and stopped therapy. I wasn’t on my parent’s insurance (or dime) anymore and couldn’t afford luxuries like therapy when I was making $16,800 a year. 

Therapy and I have met up since then.  When my friendly eating issues came back with a vengeance, I was smart enough to go back.  When Mike and I got engaged and I was nearly having a nervous breakdown over wedding and financial pressures, we both went for premarital counseling.  I’m a big fan of counseling.  Nothing makes you be honest about how imperfect you are than someone else holding up the world’s most truthful mirror. 

Today at 1 PM I’m about to revisit the whole head-shrinking phenomenom.  My awesome neighbor (and friend) offered to watch Arden for me while I go. 

About three years ago, I went through a difficult time.  I didn’t talk to anyone about it.  I went silent but continued to smile.  I told myself things like, “There is nothing wrong. You are spoiled.  Deal with it.  Snap out of it.”  I repeated these things for about a year before the “affirmations” worked and I stopped thinking about it.  This year, those same thoughts resurfaced and I have to deal with them.  When it happened this time, I knew I had to talk to someone who could help me sort through the mess that is my head right now.  Since I am a mom and a wife, I can’t just run away to a quiet place and collect myself.  The good thing about that is I can’t hide.  You can’t stay in bed all day when your kids need to be fed and loved and driven places.  And when you live with someone, you can only go so long before all the unsaid things hang in the air between you like cobwebs and you absolutely must clear them away. 

I know that I need to go.  I believe in the power of self-awareness.  But I’m scared crapless as well. I really don’t want to deal with a lot of this.  I don’t want to look, I don’t want to feel, and I’m afraid of what is lurking below.  The fear isn’t going to stop me, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  I am looking forward to gaining clarity, no matter how difficult that clarity is going to be. 

*warning - serious post ahead. if you feel like laughing or reading some light-hearted parenting stories, keep moving along, people. nothing here to see.*

It’s been a weird day for me.  About an hour ago, I was on top of the world.  Right now, I feel like I’m 50 feet below it.  Manic anyone? 

I had a personal goal on my weight loss journey.  I’m officially through the halfway point right now. In fact, I managed to break through the plateau I was firmly sitting on with my ample rump.  When I weighed myself today, seeing those beautiful numbers made me so very happy.  All the nights I’ve sipped water while Mike toasts up a tasty batch of bagel bites . . . or the times I’ve gotten orange sherbet instead of double chocolate peanut butter chunk ice cream . . .or when I order the heart smart items on the menu when all I really want is a platter of pancakes and fried eggs.  It seemed, well, almost worth it. 

What amazes me after all these years of dieting, gaining, losing, puking, starving, and taking amphetamines to really put the screws to my metabolism is how much my self-worth is still wrapped up in what other people think.  Really?  Can I really be 38 and still worrying about whether I am good enough, or need validation from certain people in my life?  When will I finally move beyond that?

How is it that a few words can knock me down?  That’s a lot of power to turn over to someone, isn’t it? 

Here’s the deal.  My need for validation is making me a walking target.  This means I have to stop talking about my weight loss. I can write about it, but I can’t talk about it.  Because I am not strong enough to handle the weird, insensitive, and sometimes, downright mean comments I get from less than a handful of people.  Because when 21 pounds lost isn’t something to feel good about, it’s time to reassess how I communicate, and to what I open myself.

I can give negative people a lot of leeway. I can remember how it was they were raised, or what was done to them.  I remember that sometimes when you love people, you want them to be the best they can be, and sometimes that need overcomes the need for gentleness and respect in your speech.  I can also remind myself that it isn’t wrong of me to want to hear the magic words:  “I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished”.  I will also fully admit that I am extremely sensitive about my weight.  When I was thin, I was sensitive.  When I was fat, I was sensitive.  Really, you can’t say anything to me other than “I’m proud” without me getting my panties in a twist.  That also doesn’t give anyone the right to smack me down or set goals for me. 

It is a major feat that at 159 pounds (look world, I admitted it!), I can look at myself in the mirror and begin to like what I see.  It doesn’t mean I’m giving up - I have a long way to go.  But for me to be able to wear new clothes, walk around, and feel okay is a big freakin’ deal.  Even at 98 pounds I couldn’t honestly say that to myself.  Remember the burlesque show?  Yeah, I actually felt - dare I say it - pretty.  It’s been a long time since I felt that way.  I plan to keep feeling that way, despite the fact that, Yes, I Know, I Am Not Perfect Yet, But Thanks For Pointing That Out.