I feel bad for my future (and at this point entirely imaginary) children.  Those poor bastards are going to be forced to play sports of some sort until they go to college or move out with a job.  I don’t care if they hate me for it.

Because breaking over a decade of fat-habits when you’re almost 30 is just fucking awful.

I’m going on a cruise with my mom, sister and my mom’s best friend in about 3 weeks.  We’re going to Alaska and I am ridiculously excited.  Since I am stoney-ass broke (as always) my mom offered to buy me some new clothes for our vacation.  I’m pretty sure she saw some of the pictures from London, where I am wearing the same combination of jean-t-shirt-Chucks everyday.  My mom, bless her, would really like me to dress like a grown-up.  I’m pretty comfy in my rut of Buffy T-shirts and Toms.  But, new clothes are new clothes.

The real problem is that I don’t actually want to shop for said new clothes.  I really like browsing.  I love going with friends to walk around shops and touch all the pretty things.  I love picking out clothes for other people and then convincing them that spending too much money is totally ok.  (That’s me, great influence on the rest of humanity.)  But I find shopping for myself utterly torturous.  I fluctuate between a 16 and an 18, but I’m just terribly shaped.  I’m what is politely referred to as “apple” shaped: I carry almost all my fat in my belly.  I have tiny (for my size) boobs, no hips whatsoever, fat but not frightening arms, well-shaped legs, and a surprisingly nice ass (which got even nicer when I was taking yoga).  Basically, nothing is made to fit me properly, aside from dresses with empire-waists, which I love, but get kind of boring after a while and aren’t always in fashion, so are sometimes hard to find.  Pants are a nightmare, shirts are not much better.  Shopping for clothes always seems like a frustrating, sweaty (I mean, for fucks sake, why are dressing rooms so damn hot!), humiliating experience.  The joy of online shopping has made all of this less public for me, but not really any less of the other stuff.

So, my mom made me this really generous offer and I didn’t want to do anything about it because going to the mall and admitting that I like donuts better than doing lunges just felt too daunting.  Why set myself up for something I know is going to make me miserable?  But I felt that I owed it to my mother to try.

Yesterday I went out to Montgomery Mall (yes, I’m a snob and Wheaton isn’t good enough for me) and it wasn’t the most awful thing ever.  With a store suggestion from my mom I found an amazingly cute dress that will totally function for work come the fall, a nice pair of pants that look not too bad, and a lovely light sweater that has an appropriate cruise-vibe without looking stupid (I think, shit, I hope).  A quick stop into Nordstroms garnered an interesting blouse and my first ever poor costumer service experience at that store.  (Note to others, just because I say I’m a teacher does not mean I am in favor of most or any “educational experiments” that leave children unable to read in English.  Actually, I tend to be against those.)

I was surprised.  I didn’t come home crying.  I actually liked the clothes I bought.  Later last evening, after I finished typing up the last of my spelling lessons for next school year (Thank Pete that shit is DONE!) the upswing of positive shopping convinced me to go to the gym.

I won’t say, “and it turned out to be a huge mistake!”  It wasn’t.  It was like every other time I got to the gym, dreading but determined, and then I remember that I don’t belong there.  When the school year ended it was on my to-do list to get myself in the habit of getting some physical activity every day.  But sleeping is so much more rewarding.  And busting my ass to get as much planning done as possible seems much more important (and quite frankly, for my sanity in the coming school year, it is).  So I’ve been lenient on myself when a whole week passes and I haven’t managed to do more than work up a sweat waiting for the bus in the blistering sun and unrelenting humidity.

I always go with the “something is better than nothing” when I walk into the gym.  It’s just so depressing, looking at the other residents of my apartment complex and trying not to watch them as the watch me try to find a treadmill that is only next to another on one side. Inevitably, as I’m plodding along at the slowest pace possible while still moving, some woman about my age wanders in like she’s lost, jumps on the the treadmill next to me, and just starts running like she sees Benedict Cumberbatch in the distance with an engagement ring.  It doesn’t matter how good I felt by the end last night (and I did feel really really good) or any other time; as a fat introvert public displays of exercise grate on the very essence of my soul.

I’ve been fat for almost as long as I can remember.  When I was young I was athletic.  I played basketball and swam during the summer.  But puberty and tragedy hit at the same time, so I gave up sports and devoted myself to comfort eating.  But once I was out of high school (where it is everyone’s job to make everyone feel as bad as possible about everything possible) no one I encountered really made me feel bad about being fat.  People would voice concerns occasionally, and periodic drops in my weight would be heartily congratulated, but all those horrid things you see in Rom-Coms about the skinny girl not letting the fat girl be a bridesmaid because it will ruin the “look” of the wedding didn’t happen to me.  Any feelings of recrimination or self-loathing or despair came from inside me, not from outside words or actions.  Last week at the 4th of July I was sitting back on the beach while a group of my friends was down at the water.  The sun was almost completely set so I could only see the outline of each person.  Without their particular characteristics they all looked the same: small and compact.  I on the other hand am large and expansive.  As I noted this all in my mind, I reflected what kind people they are, more concerned with character than appearance.  I didn’t hate myself, I just like them more.

Being fat is a comfort.  It’s an excuse to eat whatever I want, because hell, I’m fat already so what’s it going to do to me.  It’s an excuse for being single, since when you have skinny options (and there are always skinny options) most men aren’t naturally inclined to trod the trundling path.  It’s an excuse for lingering dissatisfaction with my life, because no matter how happy I am, my clothes are still fairly frumpy and everyone is way cuter than me.

But more than anything being fat is an excuse to be uncharitable towards others.  I assert my moral superiority as a fat person and therefore am suspicious of the motives of all other people.  I’m fat, you’re not, and I KNOW you think you’re better than me because you’re not fat, but that makes me better than you because you think you’re better than me for something as stupid as being skinny.

And this mindset, more than pre-mature death or cuter clothes or comfortable plane travel, is why I need to change.  Continually making poor choices and then wielding those choices as a cudgel against unsuspecting bystanders is the opposite of the way I want to live my live, antithetical to the call for love that I have.  I abhor victim-culture, but I’m realizing that I am participating in all the smug benefits even if I’m skipping over the oh-poor-me intro.

I guess that means the stupid treadmill and I have another stupid encounter to look forward to.  I might be willing to change, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to bitch about it.

(1 Year, 9 Months and 21 Days Sober)