"At some point, it becomes about the weight. When you can't live the rest of your life with ease, the weight itself needs to be addressed. Not so that you can become super-model thin. Not so that you can look like an image in your mind that has nothing to do with your body, your age, your life. You need to address the weight because without addressing it, you don't actually live. You schlep yourself from place to place, out of breath. Sitting is painful. Flying is torturous. Going to the movies is challenging. You become so burdened with the problems you've created that your life becomes small and your focus becomes narrow. Life becomes about your limitations. How ashamed you are of yourself. You close down your senses, you leave the world of sounds of color, of laughter in favor of a reality you've created yourself. If you keep using food as a drug, if your life becomes about your weight, you miss everything that is not related to your weight problem. You die without ever having lived."
This is the most amazing book I have ever read, with the most incredible insights into what it's really like to be an overeater, and why and how we get there. Thank you, Geneen Roth.
...Bitch.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
That's What You Do
A tough girl in middle school wanted to fight me for the right to accompany my best friend (and wow...both their names escape me, now...) on the Magic Mountain field trip.
I thought Amy (I remembered!) would find this ridiculous and tell me that of course she would go with me. She didn't. Apparently she wanted to be fought over.
My father said to tell the tough girl that "ladies don't settle their arguments rolling around in the dirt." Good one, dad.
We met just inside the school gate, and a crowd gathered. For reasons that don't make sense to me now, we thought we should go outside the fence to fight -- like we'd get in trouble if we fought on school grounds. I just stood there. A crowd gathered. That's all I remember -- the crowd, some of them yelling stuff, and me staring at my shoes and waiting. I waited until the crowd finally left, and then Cindy (I remembered!) finally left, too.
Then I walked home. I thought I'd handled it pretty wisely, but I was devastated. Amy pulled up on her bike, and all she said was, "I thought you were my friend."
Amy and I stayed friends after that. We talked it through and stayed friends, because that's what you do. And that's what I've continued to do. I've only left one relationship and that was my first boyfriend, a really painful situation that I actually left the state to get away from.
The ex and I are Facebook friends, now. Because that's what you do.
I thought Amy (I remembered!) would find this ridiculous and tell me that of course she would go with me. She didn't. Apparently she wanted to be fought over.
My father said to tell the tough girl that "ladies don't settle their arguments rolling around in the dirt." Good one, dad.
We met just inside the school gate, and a crowd gathered. For reasons that don't make sense to me now, we thought we should go outside the fence to fight -- like we'd get in trouble if we fought on school grounds. I just stood there. A crowd gathered. That's all I remember -- the crowd, some of them yelling stuff, and me staring at my shoes and waiting. I waited until the crowd finally left, and then Cindy (I remembered!) finally left, too.
Then I walked home. I thought I'd handled it pretty wisely, but I was devastated. Amy pulled up on her bike, and all she said was, "I thought you were my friend."
Amy and I stayed friends after that. We talked it through and stayed friends, because that's what you do. And that's what I've continued to do. I've only left one relationship and that was my first boyfriend, a really painful situation that I actually left the state to get away from.
The ex and I are Facebook friends, now. Because that's what you do.
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