4 seasons in one week

i'm going to remember this when i'm knee deep in my own S.A.D. this winter.  

this feeling of glorious relief at the grey that is this morning.  the cool breeze coming in from the open bedroom window.  the grateful heart that is so glad that it is not going to reach 98 degrees today because i cannot stomach another day spent in the baby pool wishing it was an olympic sized swimming pool or at least something i can immerse my entire body in.

a lot of the thoughts i've been having lately are not safe for public consumption.  i'm on a self imposed social media ban this weekend. i deleted facebook and instagram from my phone last night before going to bed. i won't beat myself up for checking anything on my laptop.  extremes have not benefitted me before so why set up another challenge i am sure to fail?  i'm rarely at this thing anyways now that i no longer have to frantically check my work email for certain catastrophes.

i went to bed so sure i'd work out this morning.  i even woke up before my 6:15AM alarm.  i cancelled my core circuit though. and here i am, still awake, still with the opportunity to make it to class on time and... i can't.  there is this severe mental block on going to the gym.  my body is craving movement but the idea of going and lifting things, of hoisting my heavy body up and down and around whatever is too much for me.  

i saw my weight. i logged onto the patient portal my new doctor sent to me and clicked on the tab that said vitals because i wanted to know what my pulse and blood pressure were.

this was a mistake.

while i'm not drowning in the typical "let's make a plan to diet forever and get a revenge body to get revenge on no one." the # weighs on me.  i have no desire to change my current way of eating and moving but each meal feels so weighted down with "choice" and "bad decisions" like all I am is a mass of bad decisions and cancelled workouts. all i am is a bucket of fried chicken and loathing with no will to change any of it because i know the other direction doesn't work, and who would i be doing it for? me or everyone else? because i'm a really good patient and i do like to impress. all the gold stars for me please while i do all the right things for everyone else but myself.

my first week without the pressures of work and i've given myself the herculean task of trying to sleep in and read a book guilt free.  or play a mindless game on my phone without the voice in my head telling me i'm going to waste this entire time off and have nothing to show for it. i always need to have something to show, some sort of proof of life.  i did a thing. here it is. i wasn't just sitting here shooting colored balls into an iphone game sky to amass points that don't amass to anything tangible.

it's been a weird week.

halfway through gloria lucas' talk on colonialism, historical trauma and eating disorders my mind drifted off.

'you're only making things harder for yourself.  you can choose not to think about this, you know?  you can just live your privileged life like nothing ever happened. none of this happened to you directly.  the past is way back there, barely even touching you.  historical amnesia can help you move forward, just let it help you.'

it's the voice of what i imagine my friends would think. what my family would think. what my husband would think.  because they love me. because they want me to be happy.

forgetting or not acknowledging has helped me push through and succeed in a lot of ways. i'm here. i'm alive. i've managed to build a life.

having the time and the bandwidth to step out of normal everyday life to reflect is one of the hardest things i've ever done. staring down a life of all the choices i've made based on fear and the need to assimilate. this need to be someone else because if can just fake it until i make it maybe one day i'll wake up a thin white woman who has it all.  i think about all the movies i grew up watching, all the tv shows, all the romance novels, they were the ones who won.

but things are changing right?  it's the future now, right?  short fat women of color are stepping up to take their turn in the spotlight, right?  and once that happens, our lives will get easier, strangers will stop talking to us about their concern for our health all stores will make clothes in our sizes and having a 'beach body' and foods won't be marketed as 'clean'...right?  

right?