Over the years

Friday, October 17, 2008

As far as having sex for the actual purpose of procreating this is a first. I’m not quite 28 yet, and I’m having a virgin moment. Having sex while thinking “OMG OMG we’re trying to make a baby, a real wee bebeh, OH OH & OMFG!“ is strangely exciting while at the same time a little off putting. But whatever. I love that my phone is telling me I’m fertile. As if doing the nasty is something that we need a reminder about. By my phone no less!

As if my uterus need more encouragement than it is currently receiving. Which is a lot. GO UTERUS!

There are days where I seriously doubt I can do it. You know, having two of them. Sometimes, when Carlita stretches my patience to the point of ripping my world apart with her little fists, I think about what life would be like without her, and BAM! I know that life without her would be like living the life of real people’s shadows, mimicking their movements. Dancing on the wall, possibly, but shadows nonetheless.

I can’t imagine how her face will change as she ages, just as I couldn’t see in my mind’s eye back then the little girl I see before me today.

Most of all I am just so incredibly excited. Worried, but excited too. And the sex rocks!

So big. I mourn for all the tiny ways she changes every day, and long with every fiber of my being to see what is next. I never knew child. I never knew.

My cup, it runneth over

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Today, at lunch in a restaurant, she held out her arms at me (possibly with sausages still in a fist or two) and said “Dou“, obviously meaning down. She was done, she wanted “dou“.

Both Jelly Man and I were so proud of how well behaved she was. The gap between what she wants to do and what she is able to do is wide enough to cause much frustration, which is made worse by her inability to express herself verbally. The fits she can throw are equally beautiful and horrific in their whirlwind of raw emotion. But we managed to keep her entertained and pretty content throughout, ate quickly and left with no hassle whatsoever.

It is not hard at all to love her then. It might actually be impossible not to. But what baffles me is that I feel the same love for her then as when she is kicking me repeatedly in the chest because she wants to make some kind of point, and she wants to make it while I’m changing her diaper, or when she breaks out in hysterics because I won’t let her load the dvd player, or on the days where I have to present five different foods and not even be certain that she will have any of it.

Fat

Sunday, September 14, 2008

When I started on my quest a couple of years ago to accept the fact that I have incurable hair loss because of my trichotillomania, I didn’t know it would lead me down a different, yet so very similar, path of fat acceptance, via the rocky road that is body acceptance.

My body, it is fat. I accept that. Now.

For as long as I can remember diets and dieting have been present in my day to day life. My mother is diabetic, so her need to watch her eating could not be avoided, but it was less about the superficial and more about health*. My grandmother, on the other hand, has always been dieting, and she is no closer to reaching her goal weight today than she was twenty years ago. Sure, she has dropped in weight from time to time, but what good it has done her I’m not really sure, as she is still, to this day, body-fat obsessed and more or less just as plump as I remember her being most of my life. Yo-yo dieting, ahoy!

*She was also not fat by any means when she was diagnosed, some year or so after my birth.

I think I was 13 when my mum took me to the school nurse to discuss my possible weight problem. It was humiliating, most of all, but also gleeful because the nurse measured my height and put me on the scale and made no big fuss about the results. Heavy boned, I think was the term she used to describe me. My mum, however, was not convinced. “She said that just to be nice, you know“, she told me in an agitated voice once we left the office.

The mixed messages did absolutely nothing for my 13 year old self esteem. But nor did it result in the body I have today - which is to say - the fat body I have today. I’m sure feeling worth less than my thinner peers and my mother’s concern (be it for my health or my appearance - both are probably true) could have made my transition from regular teenage chunky to nearly 30-year-old obese that much faster, but overall the damage done was not physical nor visible.

My first boyfriend was very body conscious and the three years I spent with him were years of frustration at failed diets and fitness craze. At 19 I was bicycling everywhere, watching what I was eating (albeit having regular pitfalls, because when you tell me I can not have something, of course I MUST. HAVE. IT!) When nothing worked, indeed when things just seemed to get “worse” and I kept putting on the kilos, I went to a test trial for a new diet pill in a last ditch effort to lose weight, but was turned down because my blood pressure and blood sugar was normal and so I didn’t qualify for the study, which was to help pre-diabetics to lose weight and gain control of their illness.

Seven years of self loathing took seven years of unconditional love (in terms of outer appearance, not in the way I treat the people I come into regular contact with) to get back to a place where I can now separate the person I am from the body I inhabit. My body, it is lumpy. And my hair, it is patchy. Me? I am so much more than the sum of my parts - and they are not small parts to begin with. There is the option of weight loss surgery, and I won’t minimize the grounds on which people choose to have these surgeries, but I know it’s not for me. I am also not willing to starve my body of necessary calories just to conform to some kind of standard - and more likely than not gain back the weight I might have spent many grueling months or years to lose. Now that I am past the hurdle that is self acceptance, I see what I need to do to live my life to the fullest.

Be healthy. Screw the rest. And I guess that is where we have to start separating health and fat - not because we need to separate ourselves from the fat, but because we need to see the difference between being unhealthy and being fat.

I’ve started taking interest in my appearance again. I’ve begun wearing jewelry just for the fun of it. I should definitely exercise more, but it’s no longer for a purpose that cannot be fulfilled. Instead it’s to achieve something I never considered before - to live healthily in a fat body. To love myself just the way I am, even if what I am is also fat (among so many other things.)

There is so much more to say about fat. The disposition to be fat vs. being fat because of how much you eat (exercise and keeping an eye on my diet did absolutely nothing for my weight, while someone naturally skinny might eat whatever they wish without gaining weight - it works both ways), and that is absolutely what I needed to start my self-acceptance journey - but I needed to tell this part first. Of how I got back the courage to love myself. And to give thanks.

Thank you, Jelly Man, for showing me the way.

Formality of forever

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

This is the woman who married us today. She looked awfully formal - so totally unlike me.

Living happily ever after, thank you very much!