Tag Archives: self-acceptance

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NEW DAY 300: Love story

Today is my 300th day of this… thing. Nearly 10 straight months of… doing this… this.

Not “journey”. I’m already not much for euphemisms, and that one is so over-used, it’s at the living edge of cliché meaninglessness.

Journeys imply a trajectory with some amount of planning; a clear starting point with a clear destination. A trip of some length, but overall pleasurable.

My past 300 days have skewed positive, but that’s where the similarities end. My this has been meandering. At times haphazard, and at other times meticulous.

Uncharted. Arduous. Surprising. Surreal.

I don’t know exactly where I’m going. I can’t picture exactly what it will look like when I get there. I have no idea how long it will take. I’m forging a path forward by instinct and knowledge I accumulate as I go, in a self-contained world with its own rules, patterns, and logic that don’t always hold parity with anything in the larger world. The experience is changing me in every way. And I have no intention of going back to the home I left.

It’s more like an odyssey. That combination of strangeness, adventure, movement, and purposeful quest.

I’ve learned how to nourish myself well.
I’ve learned how to move my body safely, in ways that push it to new heights and help it strengthen.
I’ve learned how to channel my positive emotions into healthy pursuits.
I’ve learned how to process my negative emotions through healthy outlets.
I’ve learned how to honor the commitments I make to myself, even — especially — when it’s not convenient.
I’ve learned how to take up more space through taking up less space.
I’ve learned how to say yes.
I’ve learned how to say no.
I’ve learned how to challenge myself in the right ways.
I’ve learned that movement and self-care are gifts, not punishments.
I’ve learned what I’m really made of, because I gave myself the chance to shine in the dark.

That’s not a journey. That’s a love story. A self-love story.

The 115-pound (and counting) weight loss, the 6-size (and counting) decrease in pants sizes, the rings that fall off fingers and necklines that slip off shoulders and shoes that slide off feet… details. Minor plot points. Background noise. The main character is still venturing forth, ready to meet the future.

Will she live happily ever after? I don’t know. I certainly hope so.

More importantly than hoping, though — I believe it’s possible. Because she’s making it possible.

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NEW DAY 281: Legwork

I haven’t always been the kindest to my legs.

In addition to — and in no small part because of — the heavy load they’ve had to haul for nearly the entirety of their load-bearing lives, I’ve derided them for their too-wide-for-boots muscularity and unfeminine appearance. Disrespecting them for the appearance they took on as a direct result of the abuse I inflicted on my body, which became their burden. Classic insult to injury.

Since I’ve been losing weight and training for a half marathon, the demand on my legs has anything but lessened, even as my body mass has. The musculature is even more pronounced as my calves slim down. My knees have taken on a knobbiness they’ve never had before. There’s definition and shape developing as the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in my thighs develop and strengthen. My ankles are popping, and not in the injury-adjacent way the normally do.

My legs don’t look different, exactly; they look more unabashedly themselves.
And I’m learning to love them.

They’ve done a thankless job for decades. They may never look conventionally attractive. They may never fit into a cute autumn boot. They may never stop a speeding cab with their irresistible curvature. But they have always held me. They supported me. They carried me.
They are strong, and they are tireless.
They are perfectly mine.

Before? Hide the legs! Keep them out of others’ view! Pants year-round!
Now? Electric blue workout pants. Highlighter pink tights. Dresses. Skirts. Dare I say, SHORTS… coming soon.

This is the type of change that matters the most to me. I’m getting healthier mentally — and that’s been the entire purpose of all of this.

If I can learn to love my legs…

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NEW DAY 125: Body armor

We have this idea that armor makes you stronger. It means you’re constantly ready for battle, and you sure don’t intend to lose. Suiting up with impenetrable metals to block attacks from deadly weapons sure does sound like a power move.

Or does it?

I’m not so sure.

True toughness requires vulnerability. True strength means not yielding to and masking your weaknesses. True power demands the risk of losing it.

Loading up with body armor isn’t a show of force. It’s a projection of fear. I know because I’ve done it all my life: I’ve worn my extra weight like a protective layer to prevent anyone from getting close enough to hurt me.

The problem with this approach — and the inherent irony in it — is that being heavy does precisely nothing to shield anyone from hurt. It only invites a different kind of externally inflicted pain, and the internally inflicted kind, too.

Loneliness.
Conspicuousness.
Mockery.
Rejection.
Othering.
Embarrassment.
Ostracization.
Discomfort.
Shame.
Isolation.
Regret.
Self-disgust.

That’s great insight to have in retrospect. Cruelly, having no consciousness of it until it’s damn near too late is perhaps the most painful consequence imaginable.

Now that I’m in the process of removing a lifetime of body armor, exposing myself to the potential for the type of pain I’ve hidden myself from since before I was old enough to recognize what I was doing feels like a scary move. But what is it they say about true courage? It’s feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Not just to prove your dominion over fear — but to prove something even deeper, even bigger, and even more meaningful to yourself.

I’m discovering a whole other person beneath the physical, emotional, and psychological layers through my weight loss mission. This is a veritable existential excavation that was not the intended goal of prioritizing my health, but it’s by far the most important one. I’m giving myself something no one else can give me: another chance at living the life I want, the way I want, as the person I want to be.

True fortitude, it turns out, is learning to live without the armor. It in itself is hard work that not everyone is cut out to handle without some grit.

I’m learning this lesson more profoundly every day — one pound at a time.