FAT GIRL, SKINNY BODY

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a toxic relationship with food; more unhealthy than any cheating boyfriend or back-stabbing bestie could ever be. I have body issues that have plagued me since I went on my first diet at 9 years old, and unless I’m 115 lbs, a size 0-2, and have had a whopping dose of vitamin D, I hate looking at myself in the mirror.

For as long as I can remember, people have also felt pretty comfortable commenting about my appearance, as though it’s the most important thing about me. I guess because I look a certain way, it’s ok to assume that I’m comfortable in my skin. They don’t realize I weigh myself 20 times a day. They don’t know I have a tape measure in my makeup bag to obsessively wrap around my thighs, my waist, and my hips. They think that it’s ok to tell me to “eat a cheeseburger or something” when I’m looking very thin, or that “you’ve put on a few pounds” when I have been slipping. They don’t know the torment I’ve had since I was a chubby little girl, with squeezable cheeks, that was developing anorexia when she wasn’t even a teenager yet.

I think about every single bite of food that enters my mouth. EVERY. SINGLE. BITE. Do you know what that’s like? I have literally counted every calorie I’ve ever eaten. But I have had to fight past the insensitive comments about how I’m “one of the lucky ones” after I lost all of my pregnancy weight. Twice. I gained over 90 lbs for EACH of my pregnancies as I abandoned any thoughts about my own body and focused on doing my best to bring two healthy babes into the world. I had to workout at all hours of the night while running a business and taking care of these 2 little ones, just to fit back into my clothes. I had to talk myself out of starving myself daily, and still do…because that’s what recovering anorexics do, for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t just go away. You don’t just get over it. You are never “healed”…you’re healing. I don’t feel like “one of the lucky ones”. And calling me that discounts the discipline it took to lose that weight, without falling into a dark place. But it’s ok, because I look a certain way.

My body doesn’t want to be skinny. It fights me every day. If I gave my body a break, and ate a healthy caloric intake , I would easily fall into a much larger frame. But for some reason, I have always wanted to wear whatever I want, more than I wanted to eat whatever I want. And so I fight my body. And so, people think, because I look a certain way, they can comment on my appearance. Because I’m lucky. I would go so long without eating that I would dream of how food felt while chewing through it. I would go to bed at night praying that I would just lose two more pounds. I could slip a size zero on and off without undoing the zipper, and all I could see in the mirror was a fat girl.

We hate that word – “fat”. But why is it acceptable to say “skinny” and so taboo to say FAT? Even as I write the word, I cringe. “skinny jeans” “skinny girl brand” “skinny drinks”, but we whisper the word “fat” like it’s a secret. And why is it so acceptable to make jokes about someone being too skinny, but insensitive to call someone fat? And why do we think that if someone is attractive, we can be as mean or forward as we choose when we talk about their appearance?

I’m exhausted. My body is tired of trying to please me, and try to make people happy enough to keep their comments about how they think I look best to themselves. “You look too skinny”, “I like you with some meat on your bones”, “You’re perfect at this size, don’t gain or lose a single pound”, “You could lose 5 lbs, but no more than that”, like seriously wtf? I think about every comment that has come out of the mouths of family, friends, and strangers, and wonder, for real, WTF? I’m TIRED. You shouldn’t have a vocal opinion about my body. It’s hard enough, as women, to deal with our own opinions of our bodies. It’s hard enough to love and accept what we see in the mirror without factoring in the careless comments of others. I write this as I sit in my bed, knowing that I’m getting out of it only to walk to the scale and see what the morning weight will be. And then I will walk to my makeup bag, get out my tape measure, and see how many almonds I can treat myself with today.

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.

“I would go so long without eating that I would dream of what food felt like while chewing through it”

GRATEFUL DESPITE YOU

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward

As I sit here, staring at my screen, reflecting on this past year, I contemplate which direction to take. Do I scream and curse at everything 2020 has taken from me, or do I really look at what it has given me?

It’s easy to focus on the negative: the financial losses, the lack of human contact, the loss of affection, freedom, and certainty…so I’m choosing the more difficult option. Despite everything we have lost this year, I’m counting my blessings. I woke up this morning in a New Year, safe in bed with my little family, in our home. My little business is still running (despite everything happening around us), and I have no threat of losing my livelihood. I can pick up the phone and call my siblings, parents, and nephews. I am grateful despite you, 2020.

And despite you, as well, Leaders of our country. See, as I’m reflecting on my year, forced to stare at things beyond my control, things that cost my business revenue that can never be made back, cost us time with friends and family, caused excess cases of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, all through decisions that were NOT MINE, I realize those decisions were made by someone.

So, as I reflect, I’m hoping those decision-makers, OUR LEADERS, are doing the same. I’m hoping that they have enough of a conscience to really think about what they have cost our country. I hope they think about the millions of dollars they cost small businesses when they locked them all down for months at a time, and the BILLIONS of dollars they made for huge corporations when they simultaneously kept them open. I hope they remind themselves of all the revenue lost in restaurants when they took away half their tables, while I felt people’s breath on my neck at Costco. I hope they think of every unused creamer I sanitized, while someone touched every apple in the produce section at Walmart before deciding on one. I hope they think of the 80 yr-old woman who passed away alone, without seeing her grandchildren one last time, while 50 people wait in line at the LCBO. I hope they think of the 55 yr-old business owner who lost everything in multiple lockdowns, claimed bankruptcy, and took their own life in a depression, all while you, our leaders, collected your full salaries. I hope you think of the strain on the relationships, the anxiety, the drug addictions, the suicides, ALL OF IT, when you reflect on your year. While you spent holidays with your families, though you ordered us not to. While you vacationed at your cottage, while banning us from ours. While you treated us like children, giving us rules, while you did the opposite. I truly hope when you sit down and reflect on your year, you ask yourself, did my decisions make sense? Could I have done better? And then, DO BETTER.

I am choosing to be grateful because I’ve managed to keep everything I’ve worked for, despite everything you have done to take it away. Because when you worked against us – the little guys – our friends, families, and communities worked WITH us. I am so grateful for all of it. My friends, my family, my community…my life.

YOU’VE CHANGED

I was browsing through Instagram the other day, just scrolling through, half-involved, when my friend Nolan’s story made me pause. It was a meme, of course, with a caterpillar telling a butterfly “You’ve changed”. The butterfly swiftly responds, “We’re suppose to”. It hit me right in the gut.

How many times have you been in an argument with a partner and they accuse you of having changed? Your automatic reaction is to respond defensively, as though they’ve insulted you. But the reality is that you are doing exactly what you are supposed to do: you are evolving. And perhaps you are out-growing your surroundings.

A few years ago I went through a series of what I like to call “unfortunate events”. I remember hating myself, and thinking I just wanted to go back to being the NORMAL me. I wished away the anxiety I was starting to feel; I’d lay in bed staring at the ceiling wondering how I came to be someone I couldn’t understand or relate to anymore. I just wanted to go back to who I was before. Unfortunately, that girl didn’t exist anymore. I was lost.

But it doesn’t only happen to ourselves. How often have we been in a relationship and suddenly realized we don’t recognize our partner anymore? How many times have we met up with an old friend, only to discover that we have grown apart?

That is life. We are products of our experiences. We are meant to grow apart, so that we can find the person we can grow WITH. We are meant to experience hardship, so it can shape us into a stronger version of ourselves. We are meant to experience joy, so that we can share it with others. And every time we experience something, we are meant to CHANGE. You are never going to be the person you were yesterday, and that is a good thing. It means you are learning. You are absorbing the lessons, and letting them mold you.

Sometimes you have to become worse, before you can become better; that’s the hard part. We get temporarily lost, before we finally feel found. But we are products of our own experiences – works in progress – and everything that happens to us, every decision we make, helps morph us into our final product. So when you finally break out of that cocoon of broken promises, broken hearts, and broken dreams, you get to fully spread your wings and conquer NEW dreams, find new loves, and mend broken hearts.

“You’ve changed.”

“Thank you.”

FACING THE F-WORD

Remember when we were teens and 30 seemed old? Then we were 30, and it wasn’t so bad, cos at least we weren’t 40…but then we were 40 and apparently it’s MID-LIFE?!!! It’s true. Forty is mid-life and I’m shook. I tried to fight, but I’ve entered my 40s and there’s nothing I can do about it. But seriously, when did it become midlife??

I have never cared about aging as much as I have leading up to this milestone. My skin changing, my body changing, everything becoming unknown to me. Aging terrifies me. Sorry, let me re-phrase: looking older terrifies me. From the time we are little, girls are “taught” that appearance is important, and we grow up placing so much of our self-worth on how we look. A multi-billion dollar beauty industry, fashion magazines and both men AND women have focused so much on what a woman looks like, no wonder we are so hard on ourselves.

Turning 40 changes many things for a woman. You can’t help that. Our faces will show our happiest moments in the form of laugh lines, and our saddest grief in the form of frown lines. Our eyes will show our experience when we hear our children speak of their failures and fears. Our bodies will show the years of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. Yup, it’s scary for a woman to face physical change. Feels like a cruel joke.

What is scarier, though, is the deeper examination of your life. Realizing you don’t have any more answers at 40 than you did at 30. Personally I have MORE QUESTIONS! Am I truly happy professionally? Should I take a chance on a new venture? Can I afford to fail at this point in my life, having a family that depends on me?? At 30, I wasn’t scared. I had youth, confidence, and no dependents. If I failed (which I never believed would happen), I could just do something else.

So why does this number send us into such a “crisis”? Perhaps because we are many things, to many people, and the struggle of getting through each day is EXHAUSTING. We, as women, mothers, professionals, significant others, and let me stress again, MOTHERS, are finding less and less time in the day to do what makes us happy as INDIVIDUALS. Having 2 kids myself, I am basically a chauffeur and spectator to extra-curricular activities 6 days a week. SIX. Now add their homework, my business, gym, chores, errands, baths, bedtimes, a few stolen moments of silence dedicated to feeling guilt or failure at any or all roles I must play (perhaps a little cry in there as well), and what does it really leave you with? Just enough time to realize that there isn’t enough time, or to feel inadequate.

Our perception of ourselves is terrible. We are never enough! We are never good enough mothers, can never keep up with the housework, stress about work decisions, feel like we aren’t making our partners happy…and in turn we make ourselves unhappy.

To make matters worse, we live in the most judgemental world, where even we, as women, tear each other down, criticize each other, hate on each other, and feed off one another’s misery. I refuse to be that woman. We need to do better.

Yes turning 40 is scary, especially through our own eyes. But have you tried seeing yourself through your children’s eyes? To my daughters, I am not just an aging face; I am the most loving mom, the person they run to for kisses on their bobos, who loves them more than anything or anyone in this world. To them, I’m not just an aging body; I am SUPER strong (“like Wonder Woman Mommy!!”) and SUPER SMART (“Mommy how do you know EVERYTHING?!”). And no matter what I look like in the mirror, they see me as the most beautiful person in the world. They’ve never judged me, like I judge myself, and they definitely don’t care if I’m a size 2 (even though I still do).

If only we could give ourselves a break, and see what they see, how much happier we would be.

Forty is only mid-life (and doesn’t have to be a crisis!!). There is still a whole other half of life to experience. None of us are perfect; we are all just a work in progress. If we could just focus on what we have, instead of what we are losing, maybe we could appreciate how aging is a luxury, and comparison (to a younger you, or others) will only rob you of any joy that your first 40 years have brought you.