"Cat, I think I am
ready to do this. I quit smoking, that's out of the picture, I'm ready
to focus on this weight thing now. I weigh 220 lbs and that's 40 lbs
more than my old highest weight. It's weird because I never thought I'd
get here. For a while I was tossing between 215 and 220 and it seems to
have settled down. I'm not so sure I am happy with it there
though."
"Knees?" I asked
cautiously. You never know how people are going to react or what they
want from you when they bring up weight stuff. Should I sympathize? Be
honest? Just listen? Offer suggestions? What do they need me to be?
"Huh?"
"Joint pains in your
knees."
"YES! At first I
thought it was from standing all day at work but I'm used to that now
and I do sleep, so then I started thinking that this knee thing had to
be from weight because I wake up in the morning after hours of sleep and
I think my feet and knees ought to have rested now and I get up and it's
like 'Uunnnnggghhh!' so I've started thinking it must be from
weight."
"It is. And it will
creep. Next in line is your back, then it's your elbows and finger
joints. Stressing joints from carrying so much weight around."
"I know. Forty pounds
is like.... a bag of dog food. That's a lot. And that's just back to my
old highest weight."
"Mmmm." I
grunted. She's a dog person, so I guess a bag of dog food makes sense to
her as a mental reference.
"I am afraid that if I
let it go any further than that I am going to start feeling really
insecure. I am afraid that I am going to end up with more problems I
don't need."
"Diabetes," I
offered without thinking. Diabetes
is a big scary for me, and so's heart disease and breast cancer.
Everyone has different scaries in their family medical history.
"Diabetes? What's that
all about? And why is that such a thing with large people?"
"You know, like my SIL.
Adult onset. Not juvenile. You are at risk for adult onset if you are
overweight. When I first started dating Paul she didn't have it, now she
does, and now she has to deal with the morning finger pricking and blood
sugar and all that stuff."
"Yuck! That's
terrible! I had no idea! I don't want to even go there!"
"Me either."
"And you know what's
weird besides that stuff? The health stuff?"
"What?"
"I see people and this
is going to sound bad... it's like..." she struggled for words and
I realized where she was trying to go.
"Like you've become
size hypersensitive? Not that you are trying to compare yourself to
others but suddenly you are size hypersensitive to people in their
surroundings and how they fit. Not just you and how you fit into
that chair there but how other people might fit there."
"Oh, God! YES! Things
I never thought about fitting. Dressings rooms, chairs or
things."
"Aisles in the store,
why some are bigger than others and how you fit in them and your sense
of space. Airline seats. I remember airline seats. That was a big one
for me. Have you noticed people themselves yet? Not just as objects and
how they fit into spaces alone but as themselves, as people?"
"YES! There's this
girl at work I just want to feed. And I ask her if she eats and she says
she eats a lot but then I eat lunch with her and she has like two bites
of food and says she's full. I just want to give her a salad, or half a
sandwich, or a slice of pizza and say 'Here! Eat this!'"
"But that's her
issues, you can't force anyone to eat."
"I know but it's so not
good. I know there will be people who'd think 'Yah, well she's skinnier
than you and you're fat so what the hell are you talking about' but it's
not a jealousy thing it's just a worry thing. Don't people eat?! I know
I'm unhealthy from this end but that's got to be unhealthy from
that end! Are we all that unhealthy?"
I nodded.
"Then I see people who
are larger than me and I think 'If I am at 2 hundred something and you
are so much bigger than me, and I feel this much pain now, my
God, how much pain can you be in and how do you stand it?! Do
your joints hurt too? What else hurts? Can you tie your shoes?'"
"This is all normal,
you are not crazy. You
are just suddenly starting to notice things you never thought about
before. When I was there I thought the same weird things. I was also
hypersensitive to shoes. Notice how they are always slip on shoes for
larger people because they are easier to deal with?"
"It's so awful and so
sad. That everyone all around is just not healthy. Why aren't
human beings healthier? What have we lost? And I come home and I wonder
-- what if I can't tie my shoes anymore?"
"Or cross your
legs."
"Or cross my legs,
" she sighed. "Know what else?"
"What?"
"I feel a lot better
about myself here at 220 than I did at 180. Like maybe I needed to gain
these pounds to be able to see and realize I'm not so bad. Because
people like me. I have friends, I have a job, I don't wonder any more if
people really like me."
"Holly, your friends
like you for you. Not your shape."
"I know that. But I
guess before I was so worried about being liked, about making a good
impression I was never really sure if people liked me, the me
inside when I was at 180. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be
here."
"Well, if it took
gaining another 40 lbs to make you realize you are liked for yourself,
and you can like you now, then I don't think it was so
horrible a thing."
"Me either. I figure
from here forward, as I lose weight if people start getting attracted
because I am thinner, it won't matter. It's just like a bonus or
something, because I can tell now who likes me for me and I start
liking me. It's weird to explain."
"Doesn't sound weird
to me at all. It sounds like you got your head and heart working
together."
"Yeah... I think
so."
I gave her a thumbs up.
"Way to go, babe. Because there is no way in hell that you can do
anything body wise without your head and heart working together in
harmony. People who avoid getting their heads and hearts working right
and jump right into the body thing are crazy to me. Because if you are
not happy inside..."
"...not matter how
thin I become..."
"... you still won't
be happy with yourself and then it's like..."
"... what the hell was
the point then? All that work and agony for what?"
We grinned at completing
the other's sentences and sat there on her couch thinking things.
"You have to work
these things out. Don't be surprised if you start thinking about
childhood."
"Too late. I keep
wondering why I should have felt so ugly as a little girl when no one
around me was doing anything. It's not like my parents were abusing me
telling me I was ugly or something."
"You probably sensed
or felt something as a child you didn't understand in words but could
feel in feelings that made you feel ugly. Maybe it was a fight between
your parents. Maybe it was somebody dying and the whole family in grief.
Who knows? Little kids don't understand things in words until much
later. But little kids feel just fine. Don't you remember being
little and hearing the adults say something and you'd be confused? Like
one of those adult puns and jokes where everyone laughed and you'd be
like 'What is so funny?'"
"Yeah. All the
time."
"Then maybe it was
something that you could feel as a kid, but couldn't understand
in words or in significance because you didn't have the life experience
to put it into context. For example, maybe it was like one day your
parents arguing then you walk into the room and they change the subject
because you came in and now Mom is telling Dad to set the table and Mom
is dishing up the spaghetti and little girl you sees this and feels
tension in the room but doesn't get it because the picture is
ordinary. There is Mom at the stove and Dad putting ice in the glasses
and this is normal. This is ordinary. This happens every evening at 6
PM. But you feel some ugly tension thing, and since everything looks
normal maybe you start to wonder if it's you that's broken,
something you did. Maybe you feel ugly things because you are
ugly. Kid logic. It's not intentional, maybe it wasn't even a huge
fight. Maybe they were having a fight about the checkbook being out of
balance. Maybe it wasn't even them but grandma and grandpa. Or your
siblings. Or all of them. Just you internalizing ugly feelings you could
feel but couldn't express or understand where they came from
clearly then because of your age. But eventually you sit there and sort
these things out and try to understand them in full adult context and
just... go on from there."
She sat there thinking her
own private things and then she got really misty and made a connection
and we started talking about all that. What it was, how she felt then,
how she feels thinking about it now, how she thinks it played into her
self-esteem, about how kids think and their perception of things,
parenting, family dynamics, all kinds of junk. Then she started
laughing.
"Ok, Cat, I am going
to ask you something and don't get offended because I really do think
you'd make a very understanding parent if you became one, but don't you
ever wonder that maybe you are a little too intellectual to
become a parent in the first place?"
I started laughing.
"Of course I do! Paul and I talk about that one all the time. I
know how I am and I know how he is. Think too much about too many
things. I guess that's why if I ever have children I need them to be
able to see me not just as "Mom", but as me, a whole entity,
and that yeah, "Mom" would be a facet of me, but that's not all
of who I am."
We talked about other
things too -- work and junk. I suppose this whole conversation was about
understanding self from all angles -- facets to entity, parts to
whole.
"You know, Shawn
called me up and told me it's like you hit 25 and you start thinking
these things. Then Ney calls me up out of the blue with the same stuff.
I'm thinking things. Paul is thinking things. You are thinking things.
Everyone is doing it."
"It's true. It's like
you get here and think 'Ok, my mid-twenties. Where have I been? What
have I done? Where am I going?' and you sit around thinking all this
shit and it's depressing."
"Look, Hol, you do
whatever you gotta do, think what you have to think, work things out in
your head. If you ever need a workout buddy just give me a call. You
know I am always game for that. Or if you need an ear to talk. Or a body
just to have along on a walk where you don't want conversation but just
some other being there. Whatever, just call me up. Just take it slow,
and take it easy. Take time. Don't be rushing and don't think you
are alone thinking all these wacky things because you are not. Being
grown-up is mostly guesswork!"
