Resolve

7:18 a.m.

Earlier this week my boss noticed that I've lost weight (10-12 pounds, the fudge/Thanksgiving pounds) and I felt very good and very fancy. Then I felt very shitty, that a comment like that could change my mood so much. Then the good and fancy feelings went away and the next few days were normal with the worrying and obsessing and hating how I look. I thought, "I am getting nowhere." I thought, "I hate myself like this." I thought, "Am I not getting better? I am so very very tired."

Tired.

Last night after work I had a few drinks with three women my age. They are all attractive and healthy, active. Many times, when I have hung out with them in the past, I have wished my body was like theirs, I have wished that my weight was the same as theirs. It made me feel unhappy, but the comparing and wishing, they were there. I could not stop it. Compare, feel bad, compare, feel bad. An ugly life cycle. With every woman I meet. Compare, feel bad.

One girl is getting married on the beach this summer, and was laughing at how pasty she felt. We started talking about our bodies, and our weight, and our clothing sizes. I was shocked, utterly shocked, when I discovered I wear the same size(s) as three attractive, healthy, slim women. I was shocked to discover our weights were all nearly identical. Three women with the sort of bodies I've longed for. We are different shapes, but we are the same.

Mine wasn't gigantic and disgusting in comparison.

Mine was the same.

I'm sobbing as I write this, at 7:28 on a Friday morning. I'm sobbing because I feel like such a stupid little fool. I'm sobbing because I have wasted so much time, so many years, worrying and comparing and feeling like complete shit, and I was wrong. My eyes, they have been clouded and hard on me and wrong, and I am an idiot.

An idiot.

I'm sobbing because I woke up last night, and I knew that I am truly done. I'm setting myself free. I will continue to eat healthily, and be active, and exercise, my whole life. And I will be okay. I don't have to compare. I don't have to worry. I was fine all along, and I will be fine.

It's a little confusing, a little scary. A giant culmination, the climax, a mental crash, a lifestyle-shattering epiphany in a crowded bar. I'm so glad. I'll take confusing and scary over exhausting and ugly any day.

I am free.

Love,
black sheep