Oh Life.. Is Bigger.. Is Bigger than you..

I wonder if my fat is sad.

Among all other things going on in my life I have been on a weight loss journey for over 10 years. I have gone from 320 (probably higher but I stopped looking after that) to 195. I am now at a point when I know I am only pounds away from a very important goal. My first set over ten years ago for 180lbs, the weight I was when I met my husband. Why is this number, after all it isn’t very slim? I think it is because at that point in my life I could physically do things that I had never been able to do before.  See, I had gone thru a drastic loss (from the 300s ) before then, so really this is my second time around. Can you imagine what my body has been through? Depression, self- abuse, discipline and reshaping and remolding time and time again. It’s exhausting. It’s a daily struggle not to give in and self-medicate with food, which had been my only medication for so long. You do understand this is how humans become obese, right? They eat their emotions. I mean, everyone likes cake.. but few of us can manage to eat an entire one in one sitting. That was me. I was a champ at it.

My favorite binge situation was always in the car, alone, parked somewhere far off away from prying eyes. My favorite foods.. baked goods, thick with preservatives and more sugar than could be processed by any human being. Why? It numbed the pain. At least I told myself this, but what it really did was numb everything. I was working with no emotions but a melancholy wave running under my skin at all times.. and the only thing I could do to quell it was to push it under with more food filling me up.

It’s been almost 2 years since I have binged in secret. I don’t miss the feeling, the guilt or the pounds. I don’t miss the numbness..because I have found that emotions are beautiful and strange and wild and crazy and exhilarating and exhausting and good.. really really good even when they are bad. Something bad happened to me a few years ago. I was betrayed severely by someone I really trusted and when it happened, everything clicked. I felt like I wanted to honor the lesson and take on the pain instead of hide it under layers again. I wanted it to hurt so that I would never put myself in that type of situation again. The situation was blind trust.. and as sad as it is, I don’t have that so much anymore. It’s made me a harder person for sure, but It has taught me how to keep safe. It also taught me how to feel, how to cope and how to rebuild myself into a person that wouldn’t be in that situation again.

Oh life.. is bigger than you.

I always feel REM when I talk about things. In fact music is my life. I used music to cope through my traumas in life. I still do. I also listen to it when I work out, which is weird and exciting to say because I was never that kind of person.

So although I am pounds and pounds away from my goal right now.. and I am fighting every day to get stronger and healthier.. The journey is my life. It is behind all my motivations and emotions. It is behind the door that has opened and allowed me to write about it all now, without tears and regrets. I let go of so much of myself.. and I feel better all the time.. but I wonder if the rest of my fat is sad. Does it miss the other fat that has gone? Does it really want to hold on to me because I love and nurture it still now but in a different way?  I honor it as energy and as a battle scar for all the things that have pushed against me have been pillowed by it. It protected me when my heart wasn’t strong enough to take the pain, back when I was small and hiding from the world I was presented with, heavy with violence and abuse as it was. I don’t hate you fat.. I honor you differently now. It’s ok that you want to hang on. I get it. I kinda want that too because shit might get real again and I might need your help..but then again.. maybe I am strong enough for the both of us now?