As I lay in bed, last night, unable to sleep, I caught myself counting my ribs. I take stock of my body quite often, these days; even though I’ve been relatively close to a low weight for a while, now, my fingers will unconsciously drift to ribs, collar bones, the bones of my hips, muscles in my legs. Some of these things, like collar bones, are visible to others; some are still hidden under layers of saggy skin and fat. And while I don’t like seeing the saggy skin I’m left with, it’s still me, and still okay. None of you are going to see me naked any time soon, so it really makes little difference. (The obvious exception is my husband.)
It’s the evidence of the work I’ve put in, as well as the detritus of my former self. As I lay there, I thought about how much less room I take up in our bed, although my 18-pound dog has managed to take over any differences in space to her advantage. Dogs are uniquely skilled at stretching to fill whatever open space there is. As I rise from bed to walk to the bathroom, it’s an easy matter of simply placing my feet on the floor and standing; even as recently as two years ago, before my first of two knee replacement surgeries, that simple action might be so painful and lengthy that any midnight trips to the bathroom might wake me fully and leave me struggling to return to sleep.
These echoes of my former life remind me of times I often forget, now that I move with relative ease, and I still surprise myself, even now. It was roughly a week ago when I laid down on the ground next to our camper to pull down the stabilizing jacks; despite owning the camper for four years, it was the first time I had attempted to move them. I was able to get a couple of them down with some verbal instruction, and getting back up from the ground — while awkward — was a matter of a few seconds of weirdness instead of fearing I wouldn’t be able to get up under my own power.
My brain wants to still tell me that some things just aren’t possible. I haven’t worked up the courage to get on my bike, yet, for instance; despite having both of my new knees for over a year, ones that bend so much more easily (and pain-free!) than the original equipment, my mind argues that I’ll still struggle with it. In the middle of a pandemic, I’ve reasoned that if I do hurt myself, it’s a really lousy time to have to visit an emergency room. The truth is there’s probably never a really good time for that, and if I ever want to take bikes with us when camping, I have to get comfortable with the idea of getting on and off a bike that’s just a bit too tall for my 5’2” frame. (Ideally, a 24” bike would probably be better, but those seem to be a bit scarce in desirable options.)
As I mentally fuss over losing a few more pounds to get to my current low weight, it also occurs to me that I deal with much smaller increments these days, ones that don’t stress me out like they initially did when I started my journey. I purposely broke down my goals because the idea of having to lose 200 pounds was simply too overwhelming to consider; too hopeless in light of the endless stats about how diets fail, how many regain the weight they’ve lost. While I will always have to be vigilant about keeping my mind and body focused, I no longer worry about those stats like I once did. Today, I am exactly 15 pounds above my low, and once I get there (and I will get there, again), it’s a mere 10.2 pounds more to a weight where I will evaluate my health markers and see if I will continue to nudge my goals.
I’ve accepted that when my health markers are right, I may still need to occasionally adjust as I age. That’s life. It’s no longer about my physical size, and hasn’t been for quite some time.
Self-acceptance is such a major accomplishment; I hadn’t fully realized I had reached a place where beating myself up just didn’t seem necessary, anymore. Despite not being obese my entire life, I have always felt as if I’ve had to justify my existence, and apologize to others for my own perceived shortcomings, including judgments on how I look, how much I weigh, how I dress, how I present myself to the world. Mind you, I do care if I’m making a good impression, but the echoes of those particular mind games have been banished. I’ve stripped away those ideas of having to conform to anyone else’s ideas of how I should define myself.
This is me, in this moment, striving to be my best; sometimes I fail, and sometimes I do a lot better than I imagine I can. It’s my life as I know it in this moment, and it’s pretty good.