Today when I woke up, even I knew that my leg hair had gone about 40,000 steps too far. They prickled at me when I rubbed a tentative hand down my legs and that was particularly upsetting as I was wearing pants. I have been silent for the past few (20 days) trying to seriously rally back. I’ve been in constant rally mode, it seems.
So my last post was about green juicing. On July 17, at a doctor’s visit, I stepped on the scale to hear that in my 2+ weeks of green juicing I had gained, yes GAINED, 6, count them, SIX pounds. This was despite low calorie intake- but carefully balanced to avoid the starvation mode that would scare my body into holding on to fat <– LOLZ, apparently. I was on high fiber green juices and gallons of water to help flush my system. I WAS DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT! Even if I hadn’t lost 550 lbs, surely GAINING 6 of those &%@#^*$#% things is just WRONG in every single galaxy known to man???? SURELY!
SO on that fateful day, it became official: something inside my body is mega-busted and nobody understands what it is, or how to fix it and it made me scared. No. It actually made me FURIOUS. And sad. And distraught. And filled with the fear that this is my forever look. I DON’T LIKE THIS LOOK!!!! How do I return it? WHAT IF I NEVER GET RID OF IT????
So.
That was July 17.
I clawed my way to the surface of despair just in time for July 22- the Oh So Happy Day, my tiny man turned 1! That was a beautiful day. He’s walking, and babbling a few recognizable words, and several indecipherable ones; he’s social, and smiley, and the sweetest one year old since my firstborn was one himself.
Remembering how I spent the first week of his life hunched over his impersonal plastic hospital bassinet in the Baby ICU, praying that he would be okay, and that he would never remember that he spent much of his first week without being cuddled and swaddled and kissed; praying that he would forget that the first things that clutched his arms were tubes and casts…when I see him now, so happy and confident and hitting all the milestones with style, it warms me through and through. I really did spend all of that July 22 beaming down at my beloved bundle. It was a great day, like a promise of even better to come.
Then came nightfall. And the realization that his first birthday signified the end of the whole “one year on, one year off” thing. Here I was, one year later. All kinds of diets, lifestyle adjustments, workout programs. Many tens of pounds heavier. No fix. No diagnosis. No clue. No hope?
No. There’s hope. There is always hope, because there MUST be.
I choose to believe that someday we will figure it out and fix it. Somehow. Some day. SOMEHOW. But for the time that I am stuck here, I struggle to remember that I am still a Natalie. Still a whole, entire human. Still a Me. Every time I think I’ve gotten the hang of that notion, I find myself still hiding from old friends, avoiding public spaces, wishing to spend the day in pajamas or things with no seams.
Objectively I know I’m not breaking any weight-records, but that does nothing for the me I am versus the me I used to be (whittled away daily in my memories until Memory-Me now rivals all Victoria Secret’s Angels).
So here we go again. Reminder #34,750 that I am much more than just the muchness of my body. I am much more than the rustle of my un-razored shins. I am much more than some chick who doubled her baby weight instead of lost it.
I am more than the girl with the undiagnosed conditions. I am more than the girl with the diagnosed conditions I actually DO have too, for that matter. I’m so thankful for a husband who can convince me with just a wink or a kiss, blown across the room, that he still thinks he won a jackpot with this woman as his wife. God must have known that on the days I wake up feeling like this, like a large and terrifying sasquatch…
…I would need his reassuring dimples to feed me confidence til I manage to take a deep breath and stagger towards my own.
OK. I’m going to go now. I’m going to go shave my legs, and wash my hair and experiment with some new makeup. I have a date with the hubby, you see. And because he already thinks I’m beautiful, I’m feeling brave enough to actually try to be.
I know there are days we just can’t see it or feel it or imagine it, but I promise you my darlings: No matter what, EVERY SINGLE DAY…we are sexy beasts.
Peace, love and gluten-free cookies, my beauties.
After all, courage goes with everything.
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