onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “taking risks”

28 Oct 2012

What do you get when you cross an oven with a mountain?

I started out writing this post a couple of days ago, but since then, I have become aware of something that has changed everything. I was given some insight into how I operate and how it affects my life. I’m having a hard time processing it. So I wrote this rather mixed up post with two analogies that don’t go together. The kind of thing only Shakespeare can get away with. And it turns out he’s dead. But bear with me. It’s at least short and ends with an interesting point…
On Friday, I started out writing about how I deal with relationships by trying to “do it right”. I used cute cooking analogies. I explained that how you cook something affects the result you get. If you cook at a high temperature for a short time, you get a different result than if you cook at a low temperature for a long time. Pan searing versus slow roasting. But that I had come to the realization that I was wrong thinking I could “do it right” when it came to relationships. That unlike food, people are autonomous. And that, as a good friend reminds me, I am only 50% of any relationship. So I was about to declare to you that I was going to give up trying to do it right in relationships. That I was going to start living like I couldn’t do it wrong.
Ok. Now that I have a little more clarity about my MO, let me give you a better analogy about the way I have been viewing relationships. I have been living like sad loneliness is all around, everywhere. And love is the very peak of a colossal mountain with dangerous terrain. That in order to love and be loved I am going to have to scale this mountain. I’ll have to be at the top of my game, in perfect physical and emotional shape, and even then, one false move and I could lose my footing, lose everything, and end up right back at the foot of the mountain. Or I could climb and climb forever and never reach the peak. There is only the peak, or sad loneliness. The journey will be treacherous. There is no room for error or a lack of focus. And my success, as well as my ability to succeed is doubtful.
So here is what a friend pointed out to me. That all of this caution, all of this tentativeness and focus and “doing it right” is doing it wrong. Because it’s dishonest. It’s inauthentic. It’s a manipulation. Because I am doing my best to be what I think I should be in order to be loved by this one, instead of just being who I am and finding the one who wants to love me. Because I’m so worried about not getting rejected, that I fail to notice that I’m not actually getting loved.
So let’s go back to my cooking analogy. I’m going to say that I was wrong about being wrong about doing it right. (No, it’s ok. Feel free to take a minute to diagram that sentence if you need to…I’ll wait.) I have been wanting something to come out slow roasted. But I have been unwilling to stand in the heat of an uncomfortable kitchen. So I’ve been pan searing it. And I have been pain-staking about pan searing it exactly right. But in the end, it still comes out pan seared. And that’s not what I want. So it’s time to turn off the stove top, turn on the oven and heat up the house.
I’m trying to remember that it might not come out right at first. That it might take a few tries before I get the dish I want. But at least I’m on the right track now…
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13 Oct 2012
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Love, hold the onions

I wrote my first entry for what would become this blog on January 2nd of this year. I didn’t know at the time that it would become “Onceafatgirl.” (Or maybe I did somewhere in my heart.) But it was the 6th Anniversary of having my eating under control. And I was still thinking and living as if I were walking around in a 300 lb body. Growing up with food issues can mess with your head. Once a fat girl, always a fat girl. No matter what you look like on the outside. And I knew that it was time to let go of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that had become obsolete.

And so far, this has been a year of healing and spiritual growth. Writing this blog has been a gift to me. What I wanted most was to be willing to take risks with my heart. I had always kept my life small. Been highly risk averse. Unwilling to risk rejection. Or humiliation. Especially in romance. And that kept me lonely. So here I am. For 10 months I have been telling you my dark secrets and painful truths. I keep my self-censorship to a minimum. I keep it honest. I make it intimate.

And when it comes to men and romance, I did, indeed, take a few risks. I am proud of myself. But instead of getting bolder and more sure of myself, instead of letting each risk be a reference to the fact that I survived it, I started out bold and got more and more timid. I started to get scared. I started to doubt.

And then BOOM! All of a sudden I find myself back where I was in January. Feeling small. Feeling my life constrict around me. Feeling lonely and ashamed. Unlovable. Unworthy. Burdensome. Broken.

And this has come up again now because I had to give up some food. And some serious fat girl issues got unearthed. Yes, even though I have maintained strict boundaries around food and my eating for over six and a half years.

See, what occurs to me is maybe a giant plate of deep-fried onions once or twice a week made it ok that I was lonely. And when that got taken away suddenly I was still lonely but I didn’t have the onions anymore to make it ok. So of course I just wanted my onions back. But maybe if I think about it, I don’t want them back. Maybe I should stop wanting things that make it ok that I’m lonely. And maybe I should stop finding ways to be ok with being lonely. Maybe I don’t want onions. Maybe I want love.

What I’m saying might not make sense to you. Maybe you have spent your life knowing that you deserve love. And maybe you have never put something between you and your fellow human beings. But food was my best friend and my lover for the first 28 years of my life. And then even in the past 6+ years, with strict boundaries around my food, I allowed it to be my comfort. And as soon as my comfort food was taken away, I felt vulnerable. Shamed. Punished. Growing up, food was how I convinced myself that I could survive without love. But it was also the reason I felt like I would never be loved.

There is something I am noted for in my work life. “Quality information.” I can be counted on to give it, and I am always grateful to receive it. But that is not true of me with men. With romance I always want to avoid information. Or at least keep the information I seek irrelevant. I never want to look at the truth. It’s too scary! Because I am absolutely positive that no man will ever be interested in me. That has been something I have “known” for as long as I can remember. So I don’t seek quality information. I don’t ask the relevant questions. I just answer the questions myself. Always with the answer that I am most afraid of. Always telling myself that no man is interested in me. You would think I would just ask them! When I answer for them, I never stand a chance.

It’s almost like when I was fat and I would make a fat joke about myself before someone else would do it. I’m rejecting myself on every man’s behalf first. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

Which just goes to show how warped I am. I’m not interested in jerks. I don’t like arrogant or obnoxious human beings at all. And certainly not to date. If I like a man, it’s safe to say that rejecting me would not bring him satisfaction.

I know that fear of humiliation is part of being human. It doesn’t make me different or special. And when I am paralysed with fear of rejection, it’s because I’m thinking that I have something to lose. Maybe I do. But I need to stop aching. And crying. So let’s try this again. I want to take risks with my heart. This time without giant plates of deep-fried onions.

I call a do-over. Starting…now.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Relationships and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
07 Jan 2012
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…Always a fat girl

Origionally posted to Facebook 1/2/12

So I’ve decided to take risks in 2012. Wtf am I thinking? I do not like to take risks. I like my life comfortable. Who cares if it’s small?

Right. I care. I’m lonely. If you’ve seen me, you probably think that I’m a knockout. If you’ve met me, you probably think that I’m honest, graceful, generous and loving. And I’m single. I have always been single. I have love issues. I have fear issues. I have worthiness issues. In short, I’m a fat girl.

If you’ve met me in the past 5 or so years, you might not understand. Even if you’ve known me my whole life you might not understand. Because if you look at me and see my thin body, you might think that the way you see me and the way I see myself are the same. But you would be grossly mistaken.

At 19 I weighed 300lbs. I could not stop eating. I hated myself. I hated my body. I was filled with shame. But I could not stop.

For years now, (6 years today, as a matter of fact) I have had my eating under control. At 34, I live very happily. I have a normal body. But I have certain thoughts. Irrational thoughts. They are fat girl thoughts. And I understand that they will never go away. (Even if you don’t.) Seriously. Never.

I am unworthy of love, hence no one will ever love me. I should prepare for a life alone. I should resign myself to solitude. I am fundamentally broken. Who would chose the broken woman when he could have a whole one. A bright shiny new one. With a world full of women, who would choose me?

I am not stupid. I am just emotional. It’s not that I don’t know that this is false; that this is not how love works. But it lives inside me like a truth. This is *my* fat girl curse. I don’t claim that every fat girl has the same. But I know many women like me. Fat girls (thin or not) who have something similar. That shame and disgrace. That self punishment. That belief that if only they were better and more, they could deserve. Deserve whatever it is they don’t deserve. Love. Money. Peace. Joy.

I decided years ago to make friends with my fat girl. She was good for my life in some ways. I wasn’t pretty, so I had to cultivate a personality. I had to be smart. I had to be funny. I learned to be decidedly quick and devilishly clever. That was all her doing. I am grateful to her for that. And she got me through a difficult childhood. Sure she did it by getting fucked up on sugar and just not dealing with shit. But she got me through none the less. And I’m here now in a different place and a different life. The same body, of course, but God, how miraculously different.

But she is not dead or gone. She cannot die before I do. I can usually distinguish her voice in my head. Partly because she’s a total Debbie Downer. She reminds me not to think big. Not to dream at all. She reminds me that I will only be humiliated. But I know that she just wants her cake back.

So this year, I want to take some risks. Not subway surfing or tightrope walking. But risks with my heart. Risks of rejection and humiliation. I can hear her even now. “You’ll be sorry. It can only lead to suffering. Don’t you see? Chocolate cake will never reject you.” But I know that cake will never love me either. And that it will never let me love myself.

If I spend my life without ever being loved and in love, so be it. I have spent my first 34 years that way. But living in fear is heavy. And as time passes, it seems silly to have lost 165 lbs from my body, only to carry it in my heart.

Wishing you many blessings for 2012!

Posted in Life, Relationships and tagged , , , ,

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