Sweet little baby Jesus in a manger with a halo shooting out of the top of his head and eating brownies. I know that’s a weird exclamation but words really are useless after the photographic carnage I witnessed yesterday.
Have you ever seen a photo of yourself that made you absolutely despair? And I’m not using that word lightly here. I mean a photo that makes you stop and completely reevaluate your life choices and everything you stand for? A photo that makes you a little queasy, frankly?
Y’all, I know you may not believe me here but I really don’t have low self esteem. Well, okay, I think probably everyone does just a little, about certain things, but overall, I’m not hermiting myself away or hating on myself. I am, in fact, today being extra gentle with myself and trying to show me the love. However. However.
I have just seen 300 pieces of photographic evidence that I look terrible. Not in comparison with anyone else. Just in comparison with me. With what I thought I looked like. I know. Why do my looks matter? Because they do. You know what I’m talking about. They just do. And I can feminist and love-myself and looks-don’t-matter all I want. But at the end of the day, when I sit down at my computer and open up a CD full of breathtakingly unflattering photos of a face so couched in fat that I can’t recognize myself, it makes my chest pang just a little. And that’s just the way it is and you can’t help the way you feel about things. So it hurts.
And it’s also freaky, because that is NOT what I see when I look in the mirror. You have to know what I’m talking about here. I can actually see my cheekbones and the shape of my face. I can! I know what I’m supposed to look like. I know how I feel. And it’s not… what I saw in those photos.
I’m having a down day. Clearly. I know, everybody gets them. But what sears my heart is looking back over the weight that I lost, represented in this blog over the past few years and knowing that had I stayed with it, I would be down to feeling pretty good right now. Certainly healthier and I would have moved on to my plastic surgery blog.
Kidding.
And also, not.
Isn’t this the cycle, though? For most people? You lose a bunch of weight, and then you don’t, and then you gain a bunch back, and then you get depressed and you start the cycle again. I guess all anyone can do really is to try. I have this great aunt who lost like, seriously folks around 150-200 pounds through this chain diet center. And she was so successful that she was featured in all their local newspaper ads. She really did look great. And she turned into this huge snobby bitch about fat people. And then the karma fairy stuck it boot in her ass (it’s the American way) and she gained it all back. Allllllll of it, y’all. If I lose 150 pounds, I will… well I’ll be severely anorexic, but if I get down to my goal weight? I promise I will never be an asshole about it. That’s my commitment to you the viewer.
Today at the office we’re having a bake-off. Dieting was much easier when I worked in an office full of men. Women like to bring in food. But I cannot blame them for my chins. Instead, I will take my character-building lumps, go to the grocery store this weekend, and start fresh tomorrow.
I can do this. I can. Right after I have a good cry.
And now, I take my Big Girl Pill and share some of the shame inducing photographs.
Here is how I feel about all of this:
I am thiiiiiis wide:
Look at my arm. Just look at it!
Here you can almost kind of see the shape of my actual face, sans padding:
And finally, here is what I am going to need to get through this.
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