Heartache

As I've stepped onto the scale these last couple weeks, I have remembered my Valentine's Day post about finally reaching the magical 175. Weight loss is a funny demon. I used to remotely fantasize about 162 as the number that would mean I was a "normal" person (per the charts), but 175 was unfathomable enough.

Now, though, I have to say that I have been trying in a sort of non-striving, unhurried way, to get down to 160.  Just to see if I could.  Not to be "normal" anymore, but just to have healthier knees for running.  Despite my desire to avoid knee replacements, a big part of me did not want to lose anymore.  Not just because of the wardrobe expense I mentioned in my earlier post, but because my skin might look even worse.  More so, because I've been striving to be "enough" by way of a scale number for too. many. years.

I lost three pounds in two days a few weeks ago: heartache is a remarkably effective diet. It scared me though. I react to emotional upheaval by overeating. Never before, and I mean never, have I been unable to so much as place something on my tongue for several days at a time. Oh, how sadness can strip you down - I've long known this, but it's so easy to forget. We must sit with the discomfort, become a student of it, for the fog of sadness can help us see very clearly in a way.  Although I most certainly was not being healthy or mindful in the moment, all illusion was stripped fully enough away that even as I felt that I couldn't think at all, I was also aware - burying the experience with food was not going to help. I didn't want to eat. I just needed to let myself be with the hurt.

Though I did eventually regain my appetite, this morning's weigh-in showed me even less - at 163. As I usually do, I stood there staring at the scale for a while, feeling many things, feeling conflicted about a success that came through grieving.  How curious, that this long-pondered loss came only after I stopped concerning myself with it. While I feel affirmed and happy that since February I am twelve pounds lighter and have lifted an additional 42 pounds off my arthritic knees, I also realize that I will feel no different - no more worthy, no more beautiful - once I hit 160. I may feel proud of reaching a goal but the number does not matter.

What does matter is allowing myself to have the experience of my hurt, my anger, and to not minimize it, apologize for it, or bury it with food.  What does matter is allowing myself to have my wants and needs and to choose what's right for me. To say goodbye when it's time.

Such a vast internal space that opens up.  Heartache can offer such perspective.