Four Pound Alter Ego

Easter morning I put on my baggy jean jumper, a long sleeved high necked pastel striped blouse, small gold ball earrings, clunky shoes, minimal make up, my hair cap, and a sweater. I felt ugly. I looked like a missionary.

I had planned to wear a blue and black flowered linen sheath dress with little cap sleeves, a boat neckline and slits in the hemline to my knees. I had cute sling back black pumps and sheer black hose. I had an open weave black sweater with 3/4 length sleeves a big boat neckline and a waist, to wear as a wrap. I had dangly turquoise and black silver earrings, a silver and black watch and a beaten silver bangle bracelet. I was planning to wear my hair poofed up with product and dusted with luminescent spray. When I modeled this outfit for Mark on Friday he said I looked hot. As he detests Paris Hilton this was compliment indeed. And I agreed, I looked hot.

So what happened? On Friday I weighed 179. On Sunday morning I weighted 183. That's four damn pounds. Why at 179 was I "hot" and at 183 a missionary? I have no idea. And it is driving me mad.

I wasted half of Easter day detesting myself. I finally realized I was acting like a self centered nut, asked for God's and Mark's forgiveness, and got on with enjoying my day. But I am still in the dark about the self loathing that reared its ugly head with the four pound weight gain. Four pounds, no one could tell but me. And it was probably all water anyway. What was/is my deal? I spent two hours on the phone last night with a friend discussing possibilities. Here are our main conclusions:
1. Loss of control - I have gained four pounds and now I will continue eating out of control and gain it all back, and then some. I will not be able to stop myself from eating. I will hate myself.
2. Body dismorphia - My perceptions about my size are screwed up. I feel as fat with a four pound weight gain as I did with a sixty pound weight gain. And I will hate myself.

Okay I now see why the attack of self hatred. But why the unwillingness to do something about the ugly feeling. It stands to reason that if you felt ugly you would do all in your power to try and make yourself look and feel better. Doesn't it? But I did just the opposite. Instead of attempting to counter the weight gain and make myself look better, I tried to make myself look invisible. What's up with that? Is this more of the old tapes stuff? I felt fat as of old and if I was fat it was less painful to go unnoticed? Safer? Wow....I guess I haven't realized the extent of my fat need to hide. Hard to take this all in. If y'all have more insights I am in sore need of them.

What does this mean in the here and now? I want to look elegant whatever my size. I want to love myself enough to not look as though I were about to present the Gospel to the natives. Fat or thin I shouldn't have to hide out of fear. Gad, I feel militant all of a sudden.

Ethels, take your style, what ever size it is, to the streets. Stop hiding.

Love Bea

Fat Thanking and Easter

Markovian Theory #6
AARP is run by the Devil. Mark used to believe it was a wing of the Democratic Party but says his thinking has "evolved." He is 52.

I believe in the Resurrection. Christ's and mine. I am grateful, for the most part.

I am grateful to have my sins forgiven and hope of Heaven when I die. The thing is, am I grateful to be getting a resurrected body? Must give us pause. I have hated my body for most of my life. It has always been my too fat enemy. It jiggles and joggles and sticks out in all the wrong places. And now I am going to have to keep it for eternity? I don't know....

I want to be resurrected as me only with Audrey Hepburn's body. But that is not how it is going to work. I, me, the whole of me, will live for eternity. A healthy happy redeemed me, but me none the less. Cosmic dissonance. If I am going to live in my body forever I will at some point have to make peace with it, nay, love it.

Back to fat thanking. I tried it this morning. Good grief. How many tears can a person cry? Good thing I was in the shower. My body, the poor abused thing. An innocent I have ignored and/or tortured for years. By the Light of eternity I can see my way clear to making some changes. I will start small. I will treat it as my beloved child. Good food, appropriate rest, good health care and lots of play. Will be my chance to finally mother some one. Who would have thunk it would be, me.

Happy Easter to all of you. Take care of your eternal selves.

Love Bea

Friend?

One of the things I love best about Mark is his Frankenstein imitation. He sticks his arms out straight in front of him and walks lock kneed toward me saying "F- r- i- e- n -d" in a deep voice.

I am trying to befriend my self and it ain't easy.

Gad this girl is resistant to niceness. She won't respond to compliments, praise or encouragement. I have also offered sympathy and empathy. She has turned them down cold. "Leave me alone. I am a fat pointless failure. No one really wants to be around me or cares about me," she says. What to do in the face of this implacable idiocy? I have first and foremost recalled God's love, and the many friends and family who love her. This seems to make some small impression. She will grudgingly admit,"Yes I do know I am loved." I decide to build on this.

Now, would someone who loved you push you to eat rubbery cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving at three o'clock in the afternoon. Even if you did mix it with fat free yogurt? "No," she will slowly agree, "it's disgusting." What would someone who loved you ask you to do? "Well," she temporizes, "I guess they would tell me to eat something healthy and good tasting." Might they also ask you why you are eating? "They might." Good land, this is like pulling teeth. How would you respond? "I would tell them to get fu...." Language, language. Now if you really accepted their love how would you respond. "I would tell them I didn't know." Well if you did know, what would you say? "I would say I don't know any other way to comfort myself." Is that true? "No...I know other healthy ways, they are just not as immediate." So what you really want is immediate gratification for any and all pain? "Yes."

Let's switch tracks. If you loved someone, as you are loved, would you encourage a life of immediate gratification? "No." Why not. "Is childish for starters. Only babies get to have immediate gratification." Did you get immediate gratification as a child? Now stop looking at me like that. "No probably not." Will you think long and hard about the ramifications of your last statement if we move on? "Okay." Why else would you not encourage immediate gratification? "Does not build patience or a sense of reward." These are important to a healthy happy life? "Yes. Self esteem is built on them." So...a friend would want you to esteem yourself? "Yes, if she loved me." Are you loved? "Yes, I am loved." Can you model this love and esteem youself? "Maybe." How? "I'll dump out the moldy crogurt and have a cup of tea. And maybe a nap."

Brava friend.

Take care of yourselves. Love Bea

Theorizing

Markovian Theory #4
"Women all over the country are getting away with spousal murder in the name of healthy eating. Flax seed, like broccoli bits, kills."

I bought more flax seed. Mark maintains I am attempting to do him in. "Why would you feed me this lethal stuff? I am a good provider and I love you." I have assured him I am only trying to reduce his cholesterol. "Feeding me ground glass that sand papers my bowels will not reduce my cholesterol. And, at this rate, I will soon need a bowel sleeve like those plastic liners they run through leaking sewer pipes." I told him he was exaggerating. "You say that now, but will you say that when I am face down in the hospital? How many of these Beano pills can I take at once?" Our "healthy" life style is at times an uphill battle.

Markovian Theory #5
"Viagra makes you go blind. In ten years all baby boom men will need white canes."

No comment.

Just went and gave blood again. How nice to do this very normal thing. Fat, I was afraid they wouldn't be able to find a vein and/or the chair would break. Now I just go in sit down and get on with it. I may not be at goal weight, but for today I am thin enough. Amen.

Take care of yourselves. Love Bea

Tasty Treats

In the past three days I have had a chocolate milk shake, fried chicken, crab & avocado salad, a prune danish, garlic mashed potatoes, various pasta salads, a steak, rye bread, two candy bars, several diet cokes and a brownie. I lost two pounds.

Fat is weird.

We had a wonderful time together on our anniversary trip. No snow and did lots of things. Did go to museum and see Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Also Blood and Ink exhibit. Was a history of the printing of the Bible. I was ambushed by this second exhibit. Museum had on loan several Books of Hours. My thesis was going to include two of the very books in the exhibit. My abandoned thesis. My failure. The reason I am not a professor of Medieval history but am instead a fatish blogger. I stood in front of the Guisse Book of Hours and cried. Very embarrassing. I am not a good crier. Too many years of shutting it off. But, cry I did. I had forgotten how much I loved church history. How we as Christians theologically got to where we are today fascinates me. The world of professional history. The world from which I was/am shut out. I had not expected to run into it in a smallish museum in Idaho Falls.

Will I ever be willing to make peace with my expensive failure? Who knows? As the list above denotes I did not attempt it this weekend. I bought a candy bar in the museum gift store and ate throughout the rest of the trip. The food did the trick. I was able to shut off my buried feelings and enjoy the time I had with Mark. Went mattress and pop-up camper shopping. And made a Wal-mart and Macy's run. In fact we ran most of the time we were there. Probably accounts for the two pound weight loss. Bought new "foundation" garments, i.e. new bras, underwear and slip. Also bought a "body shaper." Can't believe I bought this thing. I hate girdles. It does make my sheath style Easter dress look better. The whole underwear buying thing is a blog in itself.

Snowing today and I am pooped. Hot flashes, herpes attack and no sleep last noc. I am going to have to address this thesis thing. I would rather gain ten pounds than open it all up again. I am comfortable being an ex nurse. I am not comfortable being an ex medieval history grad student. Yes Ethels I realize I have just run into (or been given, Grace you know) one of the reasons for my "plateau." Fooey.

Take care of yourselves. Love Bea

Gone Traveling

We are off to Idaho Falls for a couple of days to celebrate our sixteenth anniversary. I will run around the mall and Mark will lounge around in Barnes and Noble. Works like a charm. Also hoping to see Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the museum. I am so excited I can hardly stand myself. If it snows an we can't get out of here I will eat a dog raw. I just know it.

See Y'all next week.

Take care of yourselves. Love Bea

I'm So Vain

I may have gone off the deep end with this self care thing. Or not. I don't know. How do "normal" women groom themselves? I have been fat and body unconscious for so long I have lost track. Heck, who are we kidding I never knew. I was raised by durable fat religious farm women. Clean and modest were their highest goals. Fashionable and feminine they were not. I wore either long dresses for church or jeans and men's flannel shirts for school. Throughout my teen years I looked like Euell Gibbons on weekdays and Granny Moses on weekends. Then I went to nursing school. Let me just say, white does not flatter anyone but angels. Twenty some years of various shades of white. It is enough to make a body weep. Then I was drafted. No I did not actually join the military, I just looked like it. Olive drab, navy blue, gun metal gray, why did I think these colors made me look thin and cheerful? Any way I have never really applied the concepts of fashion or femininity to my self. Now seems to be the time.

Clothing, cosmetics and body work come later. I will address hair in this post. Let me begin by saying I am no longer gainfully employed. We have also just moved. Money is not just outside sticking out of the snowbanks for harvesting. Keep this vital piece of information in mind. I do.

I guess this mania all started with my first hair cut after we moved up here. I was badly in need of shearing and coloring. Short and practical with a few blond highlights had been my style since my late twenties. I am now 50. Twenty five years of the same hair style. I never noticed.

I made an appointment at a salon for my usual do. I was not real nervous because anyone can cut my hair cap and slap a few light streaks on the top. I should have worried. I knew I was in trouble when the "stylist" turned out to be twenty and cute as a bug's ear. She was also self confident and aggressive. She took one look at my long (for me) drab hair and said you need color and shape. Did I? What precisely did she mean by color? More warmth it turned out. These ashy blobs are doing nothing for you she said, fingering my blobs like they were contagious. Your base color is also the wrong tint for your skin. What color is it she asked? My own I squeaked. "Ahh" was all she said. This child then took me in hand.

After quite a while I had red/blond hair with gold highlights. I looked in the mirror and recognized the person looking back at me. She was 28. To say I was pleased was the understatement of the year. I attempted to thank my baby benefactress. I told you, she said, you just needed some color. She then got out her razor. No, wait, I said, I want a little cap of hair and I know you can't give me a little cap of hair with that. She ignored me. You need length and some height on top. She began to saw at my dry hair. I almost fainted. Relax she said it will be fine. And it was. A modern haircut. I no longer looked like I should have a little white hat perched atop my head. I looked relaxed and sporty. Sexy she said, but I am not willing to go that far.

Did I mention I am not good with my hair. I had a hair cap for twenty years because I did not want to mess with it. This new "do", I was to find out, required more care than a newborn. I will begin with product. Not products, product. Product turns out to be glue. It is called mousse, root lifter, volumizing foam and spray adhesive. I needed a recipe card to tell me how and in what order to apply all this gunk to my hair. Turns out I also needed an iron. Check, I had an iron. Not that kind of iron. A flat curling iron. (Oxymoronic) Then I needed a blow dryer. Check, had a blow dryer. I quit using it when the shag went out of style. Old blow dryer would not work. Did not have a "directed end." Well...yes. Directed end = a nozzle deal with a slit it it. I also needed a round brush. Check, had a round brush, see shag comment. Not a plastic one silly, had to have a metal base with silicone bristles. I was certainly behind the times. What ever happened to Dippity Do and orange juice cans?

I left the shop a younger and wiser women. A wiser woman with a shopping bag full of product, tools, and an instruction booklet for my new hair style. Anyone care to guess how much all of this cost? I am not telling. I am too embarrassed.

There has been some fallout from this first enlightening visit. (Not my hair.) Mark promptly used up the $13 can of hair spray gluing a bunch of cardboard together. "It said spray adhesive and was in a silver can. Why didn't the darn thing say hairspray," he wondered? Why indeed? Root lifter makes my hair look spiky. I do not want to look like Sting. Mousse weighs my hair down and makes it oily. VO5 is cheaper if I desire oily flat hair. My old hair dryer did not work. I did need the directed end. The new brush gets caught in hair less often than the old one. Luminescent spray if fabulous. Makes my hair shine. Worth the $20. Have received tons of compliments on new haircut. Have begun wearing earrings again. Also makeup. Gorgeous hair seems to need it. Is fun fixing my hair. This is the real change.

But, have I gone too far? Much more on this later. Take care of yourselves. Love Bea.