Today my inner battle is between the acceptance of those six pounds, or if I'm supposed to use them as motivation to get back down to the weight I felt the best at, the weight that I was able to maintain for the last year, but suddenly can't seem to keep off anymore.
Today I am going to fake it 'til I make it. Today I'm poured into a pair of jeans I am not comfortable in, I do not feel that I look good in, I do not feel happy about. I realize I'm probably the only one who can see those six pounds. Lord knows I'm the only one that can feel the full weight of those six pounds (both the physical and mental weight of them). In reality, no one is really probably going to notice or give a rats ass about those six pounds on me today except me, but they are there, and I know they are there.
Is it a control issue? Hell yes it's a control issue.
Is it a me thing? Hell yes it's a me thing.
Does it bother me? Hell yes it bothers me. More than it should, it bothers me.
I listened to a live webcast last night about infant and child loss and grief, and she talked so beautifully of the stages and steps we hurting mamas need to take as we process the lives and losses of our precious littles that are in the arms of Jesus in Heaven instead of in our arms and on our laps here on earth. It was so well done, so well presented.
One of the key steps the speaker talked about is needing to come to terms with ourselves, accepting our bodies as they are, and learning to live with, and love fully, our own selves and our own physical bodies.
They hurt us, they denied us, they let us down, they aren't perfect, but they are our bodies... ours... no one else's. Our bodies are the only things really in our control, and yet completely out of our control all at the same time. What an ebb and flow, what a juxtaposition, what a gift, what a burden.
So, obviously I don't love my body, I don't fully love myself, and I have identity and control issues. And I have dealt with these issues as far back as I can remember... all the way back to early middle school, back to the beginning steps of being taken captive by the inner demon of an eating disorder. My mind was at war with my body years before my body went to war with my body as I went from battling weight and self acceptance, to battling infertility and child loss.
So today I stand in that messy and slippery cross roads of telling myself it's ok that I'm starting to gain back the weight I'd lost... I knew it would happen sooner or later, it always does, it's unavoidable, it's just another check on that long list of my failures. No, I'm not defined by the scale and my weight and my body mass index. No, I'm no less of a person because I weigh six pounds more than I did a few weeks ago, and yes it's actually perfectly fine if I chose to do nothing about it and stay right where I'm at.
And the other side of this slippery road of weight gain is the silent yet screaming voice inside telling me it's not ok, I'm not ok, that this has got to be the motivation to get my shit back together, and get it back together soon, before it gets any worse.
And a huge part of me is screaming at myself - "Seriously, why are we still battling this?!? You are almost forty three years old, get a grip and get over yourself already!"
Six pounds. Six little, yet enormous, pounds. Will I let them control me, define me, hijack me over and over again? Will I allow them to take control and invite all their friends to join them for lunch and stay again for a few years? Or will I take back the control and send them back on their way?
Or... will I finally surrender it fully and totally to the foot of the cross, laying it all down at the feet of Jesus, allowing HIM to finally and fully be the One I allow to be in control of my life, allowing HIM to finally and fully be the One who decides my value and my worth through His eyes, not through my eyes, not through the worlds eyes?
{ Previous blog post "Just Keep Hanging On" HERE }
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