Honest

I have held back from blogging lately.  I was on a role for a while, but reflecting on how my blog made one uncomfortable, hearing also that one found it depressing and stopped reading, made me want to hide.  Amanda is supposed to be strong and inspiring, so Amanda is that.  Amanda is really good at hiding emotions and putting on a facade; I was trained to and am paid to do that.  Amanda is really good at performing, having been put on stage at eight years old.  I'm sick of it. This blog is my door to being real, and I have long been disinterested in being anything but that.  Real.

I woke before work yesterday morning and read my friend Ann's honest and vulnerable blog post about gaining weight back and struggling to keep up her fitness routine.  I wanted so badly to offer supporting words but her despair resonated so deeply with my own that I was instead left without words.

I stepped on the scale Monday to see 172.  To see the 170s again just broke me.  I did know that at least two pounds of this was hormonal and is surely already gone, but still.  I had chosen to leave Weight Watchers just over a month ago after discussing it with my therapist.  I was so tired of feeling chained to the computer, logging every calorie and every stride.  I was fed up with and questioning the pathology of feeling like I had to "earn" the right to enjoy the food I wanted, or to burn off anything that may have been too much.  I wanted to eat like a "normal person."  I wanted to eat intuitively - when I was hungry, what I wanted, enough to satisfy me.

My last logged weight online was 167.4 on October 5th.  Five pounds in about six weeks.  I have not stopped being mindful of my food choices, and I haven't stopped logging my workouts or my weekly weigh-ins, but clearly I need the accountability tool.  I failed to adjust my eating to accommodate the drop in my running.  Knee-jerk reaction, I signed back up.  I reasoned that I am reimbursed through my health insurance anyway.

Another piece of this is that my friend Jen had her skin removal surgery last Friday.  I am thrilled for her opportunity, but it has been hard for me to follow her progress.  I wept when I saw the pictures that were taken during the procedure.  I realized after a few minutes that it was much more than empathy I was feeling (stop doing that to her!) or the startlingly graphic nature of the photos, but rather jealousy.  I was weeping because of how badly I want that done.  I had a sort of argument going on in my head:

"Do you really want someone to slice you up like that?  Give you more scars? Stuff you with catheters and drains?  Leave slabs of your skin lying on a surgical towel?  Or to go through another surgery, period?  That would make six for you.  Do you really want to use half of your 401k to pay for it?"

Yes.  Yes.  Cut it off me.  CUT. IT. OFF!

I wish I could be done with pregnancy first.  I wish I trusted myself to never gain this weight back again.  I don't want my arms to spill out the bottom of my sleeves anymore; I don't want to have to buy shirts that hang on me everywhere else just so they fit around my arms.  I don't want to hold downward dog and see my belly skin hanging nearly 6 inches off my body, or to sit in forward fold and not be able to extend fully into the pose because of the skin piled in the way.  Most of all, I don't want to bounce around so painfully when I run.  I want to keep running for a long time and I don't want it to hurt.  I don't want my pants to slowly bounce their way down my butt because of the skin, or to feel like my breathing is restricted when I cinch them so they stay in place. 

I have never let myself really consider this.  At some point, I have internalized that this would be vanity.  After all, we're supposed to love ourselves just as we are and be completely at ease in our own skin (pun intended).  As everyone knows and reminds me, that's the best way to be happy and the only way someone will love you for who you are.  But this hurts.  It's inconvenient and embarrassing.  And the most overwhelming thought, the thought that won't leave me, is that I earned this.  I earned the right to have slender arms and a flat belly.  I lost 140 pounds through nothing but my own hard work, a years-long and life-long effort.  I don't have words to describe how badly it hurt and still does to keep moving some days, for the crap I take for not eating and indulging like some of my friends and family, or for saying no to outings because I'm dedicated to my workout time.

And then I tell myself that I'm a shallow person for wanting also to be attractive and beautiful.  Don't get me wrong: I have more pride in my body today than I ever imagined possible.  Yoga and running have gifted me with incredible appreciation for my body's strength and resilience.  But I also want to look like the other girls get to look all their lives without working one-tenth this hard, without having to spend their retirements to get there.

And then I realize, I don't have a wonderful Carlos (Jen's fiance) to take care of me, or siblings who would stay with me for days.  My parents have their own set of stressors and my friends have their own commitments.  My retirement is all on me; I can't waste it. 

And then, I just need to stop thinking. 

My shift ended late last night.  The last conversation of the day was between a patient's son and I.  He was one of 11 children, and at one point in what seems to be an inevitable, repeating conversation asked if I had any children of my own.  I usually manage to smile and sound cheerful, but it was almost impossible this night for me to form a single word: "No."   It was all I could get out my mouth.  I almost lied and made up a story about my pretend child.  To which he said, "Well, you probably still have time to pop a couple out."

How comforting. Thanks so much for that. We'd started out this day talking about babies too; two of my coworkers' wives are delivering in the next couple weeks. 

Some days I just feel dead inside.

I set out for home as usual, with nothing to look forward to but an empty apartment and a really big, overwhelming paper which I can't start.  When I sit down to work with it, my brain literally does. not. work.  I don't even know what to do.  My brain is incapable of focus these days. It feels like a tangled, spinning mess up there.

So I stopped and bought a pack of cigarettes - my third this week.  I smoke 3 or 4 and then either give away or throw away the pack.  It's my most shameful and embarrassing crutch, as I quit smoking nearly 6 years ago.  I knew if I could pray about it I might be able to say no.  Tried to and wanted to talk to God, but couldn't.  They were ultra-lights, 72s at that (those are ultra-shorts, for the non-smokers), and I only smoked three before becoming nauseated and disgusted by the taste. 

I wanted to stop at every fast food joint I passed.  I wanted a greasy burger but managed to remember how much more nauseated I would be after I ate it.  I wanted to stop at Target and just buy a box of my favorite crackers, but held on to reason long enough to remember how gross I would feel after I'd eaten the whole box. (Because I knew I'd eat the whole box.  No question.)  Then I decided I wanted hash browns and gravy.  Where could I get gravy?  Dairy Queen's chicken fingers and gravy basket.  And yet, I managed to drive past.  I just kept telling myself, "No.  No, that's not what you really want."  I reminded myself that I'd rejoined Weight Watchers, and that when I'm punching in the PointsPlus value of what I've eaten, I feel guilty and worthless for having blown another day.  I held on to knowing, oh so tenuously, that I would not feel any better with a stomach full of heavily-breaded, deep-fried chicken and gravy full of chemicals and hydrogenated oils.  I would feel worse, and I knew it.

I kept driving home and didn't stop for food.  I counted this a reasonably positive achievement.  I kept the cigarettes in the pack and out of my mouth - a marginal achievement, since I shouldn't have had them anyway.

I walked in.  Took a deep breath and blew out the toxins and the sadness.  I washed my face, brushed my teeth, flushed my sinuses with the neti pot, set out the yoga mat, lit my balsam candles and burned some white sage.  I finally made my hummus, the ingredients for which have been sitting on my counter for 3 days, while I returned Kim's phone call.  I made myself be honest with her when she asked how I was doing instead of replying with my usual, "Oh, I'm fine."  After planning a dinner date, I went to my mat, turned down the lights, and did 80 minutes of yoga.  Cried, breathed, and focused as best I could.  I moved my candles and sage to the bathroom and took a hot bath with a book.

This was my dinner:

Homemade hummus, an apple, and peanut butter.  Pita chips not pictured.

It was half past midnight by this point.  My soul was more calm than it had been, but I was still fighting the urge to get back in the car and go smoke some more.  I'm not sure how I didn't.  I just told myself it was late, I didn't have the gas money to waste, and I had been up for 17 hours.  I made myself go to bed.

I woke at 2am.  Not uncommonly, I ate almonds (2PP), dark chocolate covered raisins (4PP), and a protein bar (5PP).  Seriously.  Just when you think you're doing a good job...some days I want to throw all the food out of the cupboard and buy my meals one at a time, thereby eliminating temptation.

Today is better.  I don't want to post this, and yet I desperately want to.  I don't want to be weak, broken, or vulnerable, but yet I want to be those things too.  I want to be Amanda-who-has-all-her-shit-together, but more so, I want to be real Amanda.  I want to own within myself what others say they see, but I also I want to lie down and cry.  This journey is hard.

If Ann can be that honest and vulnerable, so can I.