Always a Dancer

or...

Trying on a New Outlook
(I was an athlete, part 3)

In early May of 2018 I had pretty much decided that I hated myself. Based on my weight. Which, I knew, was wrong, but that's where I was. Then a few things happened:

• Jason and Adreanna got engaged! (This was the biggest one because it gave me something fun and exciting to focus on.) I spent the summer sewing Adreanna's wedding dress, and making other wedding preparations.
  
  

  

  The lace is hard to see in these pics, but I sewed most of it on by hand. That, along with reception-planning, kept my mind pretty well occupied.

• I read a book called Beautiful Bodies, where the author (who was even crazier about her weight than I ever was about mine) researched "What is the ideal human body?" and "Why do we come in different shapes and sizes, and when and why did we start hating ourselves for it?" She said something that I thought about a lot...which, unfortunately, I can't find now to quote. (So it was important to me a year ago, but maybe I've moved on? It is undoubtedly in the last half of the chapter titled Ending an Era—there's a lot of good stuff in there.)
• Bruce got a job out of town; he was gone from the middle of October until the middle of April.

All of that gave me new and more important things to think about. Here are some things that I realized about myself:

• I actually do like myself—kind of a lot. BUT  when life gets stressful in other areas, I start picking on myself about my weight. It's like, "Things are really bad right now, and you're fat  too." (Is this a way of avoiding the other stresses?)
• At my current size, I can look back on a photo from ten years ago and think, "Oh. I thought I was so fat. If only I looked like that now!" 
• And here is myself ten years ago, looking at a photo from twenty years ago: "If only I looked like that again!" 
• And it keeps going and going. If, by some miraculous freak of nature (not illness), I ever had my teenage body again, would I still be telling myself, "If only I could lose ... pounds"? When does it stop?
• "Would I really be satisfied at — pounds?" is not a new thought. I've wondered that for years, but it still didn't stop the mania.

And here are a few other tidbits I've pondered:

• The beauty and fashion industry is...well, pretty contemptible. They seem to exist to impress one another, constantly moving on to the more and more outrageous (just watch a runway show...). 
• The beauty and fashion industry seem to promote pedophilia, holding up a teenage body, a younger child's complexion, the big eyes of a toddler, and "perfect" hair as the standard of beauty and "sexy" for adult women. And the more skin you show, the better.
• The BMI standard was invented by life insurance companies as a scale for how much to charge people for their insurance. More and more it is being...not disregarded, but looked on as not the best scale.
• Despite my weight and my BMI, I am in really good health. I hardly ever get sick, and my blood labs are always clean as a whistle.

Well, anyway while Bruce was gone last winter he worked with a lady (who happened to be a friend of ours already), and she was very excited about a diet she was doing. She had already lost 50+ pounds, and was a firm believer who was going to stick with this plan forever. (And if it makes her happy, I really hope she does!) So, knowing that I always want to lose weight, he told me—sometime in January?—about the book she loved: Bright Line Eating.

And while we talked about it I realized a funny thing: Somehow over the last eight months I had pretty much made peace with my body. While I still wanted to be smaller, it just didn't seem as important; it certainly wasn't worth beating myself over.

I don't know that I'm up to "beautiful" yet.
"Look pretty good today " is fairly frequent, though.

But I had some interest in what Bruce was saying, so I read the book. Basically the author says that all sugars and all flours should be considered as drugs: if you wouldn't do drugs, don't do flour or sugar either; make up your mind and cut them out of your diet now. She also outlines a meal plan that includes lots of really good foods, and the amounts she thinks you should eat. I know myself well enough to know that I am not going to give up ALL sugar, and ALL flour forever. But her meal plan was interesting, so I thought I'd give it a try—after revamping it a little to fit my flour and sugar habits.

First I weighed myself, and was surprised to discover that I was ten pounds lighter than I was before the holidays! (Stress from Bruce being gone?) Then I planned out two weeks' worth of menus and stuck to them pretty well; I lost about a pound a week. I was pretty happy about this, but I was also starting to dislike the way I was thinking about food, and the amount of  time I spent thinking about it. I just don't want to beat myself up over a slice of bread, or not enough veggies in a day, or (heaven forbid!) a cookie with some milk. I do not want to go there. After a couple of months I would make a week's menu and then not follow it at all—which made me feel stupid because it was my own plan. Eventually, I just fizzled out entirely. And, it turns out, I am pretty OK with that.

There's this mantra that diet people and diet places use to ...motivate? you: Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.  I used to buy into it, but I really don't any more. Because, you know what? Enjoying a treat with my family (especially if the kids make it or buy it) feels pretty good! And chocolate during "that time of the month" is almost a necessity; I'm not going to lie.

Um, not true.

And, overall, I feel pretty good. I'm not the most petite girl in town, but I'm not the most chunky girl either. But that doesn't matter. I do notice body sizes, just like I did way back in my ten-year-old ballet class. But just like then, the other girls don't matter; only I do. And, mostly, I'm feeling OK with myself.

(Let me clarify: the other girls matter to me, but their size does not.)

Am I completely, 100% all better, and non-crazy now? No.
Just yesterday morning I was looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, "Ugh. Blech."  But those feelings are getting easier to brush off.
Would I like to be thinner? Yes, I absolutely would. But not at the price of self-disgust and misery. I'd rather work on the non-crazy part for now.

As for being an athlete: (I did promise to get back to this)...

During my "Need-to-lose-twenty-pounds" days I tried to get some exercise. Walking and running are cheap, but I discovered that
1. I really don't like to just walk or run, and 2. I get shin-splints and plantar fasciitis really easily. I tried doing some dancing at home, but doing it alone, and doing it because it would help me lose weight took all the joy out of it.

On the other hand, when I went to a free tap-dance practice-thing a couple of years ago, that was a lot of fun. In one session it was just me and one other girl. She watched me a bit, and said, "You're a dancer!" Over the years I've had people ask if I'd been a dancer, or tell me that I walked like a dancer, but this time... it meant a lot to me. It was as if ...in her discovery, she recognized me.

I still can't get myself into regular dance classes; they are expensive, and there's really nothing around here for adults. But every now and then I do put on some YouTube videos I've found—ballet barres and jazz warm-ups. I connect them to the big TV in my living room and dance with them. And with most of my kids out of the house I get to play my own music more often so I  can dance in the kitchen while I'm working; it's pretty fun. I've also started stretching as I read my scriptures in the morning, and I'm regaining my flexibility. In fact, when I measured my straddle a couple weeks ago I was only eight inches away from the wall (yes, I measured with a ruler). That's pretty darn good for not having done it in thirty+ years! I still love dancing. It's still in my brain, it's still in my heart, and, apparently, it's still in my body.

I don't think I will ever be an athlete again—not physically. I am glad, glad, glad for the discipline I learned: the strength of body and mind I gained from my teenage years of...athletics. But there's no drive to push myself that hard again, no granite muscles, no more pointe shoes (it's hard to believe I loved those torture-devices), and no teenage body. It's not likely I will ever dance on a stage again either.

But I will always be a dancer.



p.s. In case you were wondering, I have started on the clothes that I bought fabrics for last year; I've made two or three things already, and I've started on another dress. I will post pics when I have them.