Blog Every Day in January Day 17 (+16): Recovering

For the record, I didn't miss a blog post yesterday. Some of you may have gotten the chance to read it, but I decided to take it down because it was a little too personal and it's not necessarily a side of myself that I want to share with the internet. That's the rough thing about blogging every day for me. If I don't come up with something to write about by the end of the day, then I'm stuck talking about my feelings--and to be honest, I'm a little bit of a Debbie Downer at night. So that's where yesterday's post came from.

Basically what happened was that last night my mom made a passing comment about how my shirt looked a little tight, and I blew it out of proportion through a combination of PMS and nighttime angst. I was really really mad at her, and I was really mad at like the entire world (which is a personal side effect of PMS I'm serious). I cried for like an hour...like gross ugly crying. And I went to bed pissed off, and woke up pissed off, and everything that happened from like 11 PM yesterday until noon today was fueling all the negative energy I was feeling. I spent another hour doing some more ugly crying after my mom called to have a normal conversation with me--not knowing that I was pissed of because you know, I hadn't told her that I was pissed off. So noon rolled around and I wiped my face and got out of bed and decided to suck it up and be a real person.

I won't say that I'm in a great mood now, but I think leaving the house and doing something that didn't involve touch screens was pretty good for my psyche. I wound up going to the mall to get some jeans and teaching clothes. I spent a decent amount of time at the mall, and didn't leave empty handed, but didn't wind up finding a ton. Forever 21 is a particularly frustrating environment for me, because I have a considerable amount of credit towards that store from gift cards and returns and stuff, but I literally can not find anything that I like. Part of my annoyance is pointed towards the fact that NO, I DO NOT WANT MY SKIRT TO BE A PARTY IN THE FRONT AND PROM IN THE BACK (high/low skirts are the mullets of fashion. THERE, I SAID IT. COME AT ME), and the other half of my annoyance is just at junior's clothing in general. Which is dumb, because I used to fit in junior's clothing at a point in my life and as much as I want to believe that I am still a junior I am most certainly NOT junior sized, and probably never will be no matter how much weight I lose. Plus, I don't know if I want to wear junior's clothing anymore. Tasteful florals I can handle. Huge watercolor roses and tribal prints? Maybe not.

(Though lets be honest I'm really pushing it with the florals here. Whatever, it's my thing)

It turns out that at certain point in your life, you have to start shopping at stores that carry more specific sizes than just S, M, and L. So I did that, and wound up actually buying stuff that a.) fit and b.) were like tasteful and appropriate for teaching. My preferred method of choosing outfits is to ask myself "is this appropriate to teach in?" and then swapping the pants/skirt for jeans. Unless I'm going into a classroom, then I'll keep the pants. Therefore, I'm all set in the wardrobe department!

I don't hold grudges. I get annoyed really easily and I can be a huge bitch about it, but as short as my temper is it's also short in lasting time. When I got home I couldn't bring myself to be mad at my mom, especially because she didn't know that I was being mad (although I did give her a very clipped 'I'M FINE' on the phone when she asked if I was okay). We wound up going back out to do more shopping, and even though I wound up only buying one thing, it wasn't because I could only find one thing that fit, but because I only actually liked one of the things that I tried on. I know that I'm not the only person that this has happened to, but to the people out there who have never had the experience of only finding one thing that fit and feeling lukewarm about it, don't take the fact that lots of clothes fit you for granted. Shopping isn't really a self esteem booster for me, but getting to choose an item of clothing that I actually like out of a selection of other ones that fit is maybe one of my favorite parts of shopping in stores-with-clothes-that-come-in-more-sizes-than-just-S-M-L. And while my mom isn't really my go-to for when I'm feeling down about body image and stuff, it was nice to spend time with her.

It was so nice, apparently, that I agreed to go outlet shopping with her tomorrow. I must be nuts.

Anyways, moral of the story: if you're feeling super down about yourself and you end up writing a really angsty blog post available for the whole internet to see, maybe hold off on publishing that post because you'll probably feel better in like a day then feel super ridiculous for writing it in the first place.

Blog Every Day in July: Day 29, Transformation Tuesday

(7/31 Edit: It didn't occur to me until TODAY, WEDNESDAY, TWO DAYS AFTER I POSTED THIS, that I did Transformation Tuesday on a Monday.  Such is life.)

Not gonna lie, I was a prrrettttty awkward kid from ages like...8-15.  Maybe even later than that.

BEHOLD 12 YEAR OLD MELANIE IN ALL HER
FRIZZY-HAIRED, ACNE RIDDEN, CHUBBY CHEEKED,
BRACE FACED, FOUR-EYED GLORY

I was like...the poster child for adolescent awkwardness.  Anything that could go wrong for a preteen girl went wrong for me.  I was overweight, poorly dressed, I had braces and glasses, I had acne before seemingly everyone else, and my hair was a hot frizzy mess.  I was definitely not Disney Channel material, that's for sure.

I hit puberty at a really young age, and I definitely felt a little bit alienated from other people.  I felt a lot like I couldn't relate to others, so I overcompensated by being really loud and developing a weird sense of humor.  There are certainly parts of myself and my personality that I don't let a lot of people see, and I attribute that to having a ton of insecurities as a kid.  I think when you already feel like people aren't accepting you for who you are on the outside, you do a lot to protect who you are on the inside.

That's not to say that I'm a big fat faker when I'm around people or anything.  I am loud, and I do have a weird sense of humor.  Maybe I started being that way in order to shield myself, but they come from a real place that isn't afraid of what people see or think.  Those parts of me were placed on the outside because they were the strongest, the parts most likely to win in a fight.

Anyways, I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly I wasn't awkward.  I don't think it happens to anyone that way and if it does then don't tell me about it because I'll JUST FEEL BAD ABOUT MYSELF GOSH.  I did eventually grow out of my awkward phase (which is not to say that I am no longer awkward.  I'm just not the most awkward that I've ever been) gradually.  My acne cleared up before everyone else's because it started earlier, and when the braces came off I had a nice smile--which is the point.  I got used to wearing contact lenses and started to develop a personal sense of style.  I grew out of all the things you expect an awkward preteen to grow out of.

When I was sixteen years old, I joined weight watchers and lost about 30 pounds and suddenly I wasn't so insecure about the way I looked.

What's up Smiles McGee?  You look a little sad to me.

Granted, I was still pretty awkward.  I hadn't yet learned how to smile with just the top half of my teeth (FULL ON CHEESIN' LIKE :D IN PHOTOS), and I still made some questionable fashion choices.  And my obnoxious levels reached all time highs, as they often do with high schoolers.  Regardless, high school was a pretty good time for me.  Not a time that I would ever return to, but not a time that I regret.

Looking back to my sixteen year old self, and reflecting on my struggles with weight and dieting, I remember never feeling good enough.  Like yeah, I made it pretty far but I still had so much left to accomplish.  But I never "accomplished" anything more than that.  In fact, if I could be the weight that I was at sixteen then WOW let's just let out some freakin' hallelujahs or something.  Since then I've been stuck in this uphill climb and I'm just waiting for the hill to crest and it never does.  

My mom likes to do this thing where she finds pictures of me from when I was sixteen and say "WOW look how skinny you were, don't you want to look like that again!".

....

No.  I don't want to look like a sixteen year old again.  I don't want to go back to sixteen.  I don't want to be sixteen year old Melanie all over again, with her sixteen year old issues and her weird sixteen year old sense of humor.  I want to be twenty one year old Melanie who is happy with the person that she is.  And I'm like...SO close to being that Melanie.  There is so much in my life that I have accomplished that I am super proud of, and there are so many things I have to look forward to.  I can't go back to sixteen, and I hate being stuck with this idea that Melanie from the past had it more together than Melanie from the present, just because she weighed less.  

YEAH I CROPPED
MY FRIENDS OUT.
YOU GOT A
PROBLEM??

I definitely still have a lot of insecurities, but I try my best not to wear them on my sleeve.  If I've learned anything in the past twenty one years, it's that you can't let thing things you don't like about yourself hold you back.  You either find something else positive to focus on, or you put up some kind of shield and hope that no one notices.  At this point in my life, I am definitely focusing on the positives.  I don't want to hide parts of myself like I used to, so instead I'm sharing the positives and hoping that people will look past what I fear are the negatives.

I think I do a pretty good job.  I know there's a lot of work to do, and I know that I'm not perfect.  I also know that I can't be afraid of that.  Hopefully, one day, I will be able to embrace it.

Zippers

HELLO BLOG WORLD.  Ohhh how I have missed you so.  Today I'm going to be serious, I hope that's okay with everyone.

So back in February, I started watching this British TV show called "My Mad Fat Diary", which is a 6 episode series about a 16 year old girl who struggles with mental illness and a binge-eating disorder.  It's been two months and I still can't get over how good this series is.  I know it's silly to say that a TV show has been such an important thing in my life…but I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the subject matter of the show.

When I was fifteen, I joined weight watchers because my mom and doctor insisted on it.  I'm pretty sure that joining weight watchers was the sole cause of any teenage "angst" I had.

(I didn't have teenage angst.  Ask anyone who knew me in high school.  I probably could have afforded more angst and less sugar.)

Anyways, the point is…I've had a complicated relationship with weight loss.  I've been on and off of diets for six years and I've seen ugly numbers on the scale, and numbers that I thought were ugly at the time but probably should have appreciated more.  I've been to a dietician, to a support group, on online forums.  At this point I've failed more times than I have succeeded, and yet I'm still clinging onto the hope that one day something will finally click and I'll just get it done.  Kind of like the way I clung onto the hope that my ex boyfriend and I would get back together before he came out of the closet BUT THAT'S ANOTHER STORY FOR ANOTHER DAY.  

The difference, though, between clinging onto a relationship with a person and clinging onto a relationship with dieting, is that most people will tell you that clinging onto the person is unhealthy, while the whole world will keep encouraging you to lose weight.  And I could go off in some kind of rant on society's expectations about the way women should look and blah blah blah.  But the bottom line is--yeah.  I need to lose weight.  A month from now I will still have to lose weight.  A year from now I will probably still be struggling.  Because I'm not healthy, and being healthy is an actual important thing that people need to do. 

And when I say I'm not healthy, I mean both in reference to my weight and in reference to my lifestyle.  I eat pizza WAY more often than any person should eat pizza.  I spend a large portion of my day snacking on foods that are most definitely not snack foods.  I avoid exercise at all costs--I take the elevator up a single floor and I drive to places that are only a few blocks away.  These are things I am insecure about, but they are habits that I just can't seem to shake.  I get embarrassed about them, and I get even more embarrassed when people point them out (usually with the best of intentions).  And my insecurity just seems to fuel the unhealthy habits--because while they are my struggle, they also bring me comfort….and that is the hardest part about weight loss and body image.  I have an addiction that can't be cured by quitting.  I need to eat to live.  It's not as simple as cutting out carbs and eating more vegetables.  Food and fitness are only half the battle--the other half is all in my head.

That's the thing, though.  I'm really proud of the person I'm becoming.  There's a lot of things about myself that I like.  I'm a good cook, I'm funny and energetic, I've always been pretty ambitious which has led to a lot of success (and some failures, but I always learn from them), I'm pretty intelligent (…well, I think so), and I've managed to surround myself with people that lift me up instead of bringing me down.  I'm not an out of control party-girl at school, I've never done drugs, and I get good grades.  I always put family first, and I try pretty hard to respect my parents.  I think that as far as daughters go, my parents could have done much worse.  Which is why it kills me that I still get grief from them about my weight, and that I still feel like I have to fight to prove my personality to people who may be judging me based on the way I look. 

This scene from MMFD is so perfect, because it quite vividly and quite accurately illustrates everything I've ever felt about myself.  I wish I could unzip this outer layer of fat and insecurity and all that other bullshit, so that people would just move on and see all the things on the inside that make me a beautiful person.  I wish it was that easy, and that I didn't have to spend months trying to "discipline" myself to a thinner me. 

But we don't come with zippers.  I know that getting healthy is just another journey I have to take in order to reach whatever destination I am headed for.  It might take forever, and I might spend some time getting even more lost than I already am.  In the meantime, I'm learning how to really like myself despite all of the things that need work.  And I think, so far, I've been pretty successful.

If you have a chance, definitely check out My Mad Fat Diary.  Just look it up on the YouTubes.  It's only six episodes long, an hour each episode, and it really beautifully handles all of the topics discussed.  Also I've got a BIG FAT CRUSH on the main love interest but we're gonna skip that conversation because everyone I know is already SICK OF IT.