trying to focus on being grateful

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been having some knee pain for a while. It hasn’t gotten much better and in fact, in one knee it’s gotten markedly worse. Worse as in if I walk too long I feel a sharp pain and my knee starts to click. Not awesome. I can’t walk around for more than about a half hour without big time fatigue in both legs. I checked in with my doc about it and she said that if the pain is there in another 2-4 weeks, we’ll start physical therapy. I’m frankly not in love with this answer, as it didn’t do two things. One, she didn’t acknowledge that having pain in my knee is, quite frankly, a pain in the god damn ass. She didn’t do this when I first went to her either. I’m not asking for coddling. I’m asking for acknowledgement. And perhaps some docs just aren’t like that – I really don’t know because i haven’t been to that many. And two, she didn’t even speak of the possibility of the pain coming from something other than running and then not running for a while. I know my body, and this feels like something a bit more than “you were running for a while and then you stopped, so now you’re knees are going to hurt for over a month.” I don’t know, I’ve clearly gone over into the frustrated side of the process. And I’m trying so hard to cling onto the gratefulness. Grateful that I can walk, grateful than I have health insurance such that I can just go to the doctor when I want/need to, grateful that I can afford ibuprofen, grateful that I have most of my mobility, grateful that I’ve been healthy as all get out for most of my life.

But right now it’s just fucking hard to do that.

I feel like this is all my fault. I feel like if I wasn’t so fat, this wouldn’t have happened and I wouldn’t have to hobble around and ask people to slow down when we walk together, or take so long to get up the stairs to my house. I feel frustration every day. I do believe that my weight might have something to do with my injury, but it’s tough to remind myself that it may only be a correlation, not causation. If I weighed less, there is a chance that the recovery time wouldn’t be so long, or even a chance that I wouldn’t have gotten injured in the first place. Then again, it may have absolutely nothing to do with my weight. But that certainly isn’t the narrative I choose to tell myself every day. The narrative I choose to tell myself is a bit more harsh: your fat made this happen.

The other weekend I went hunting and 4-wheeling (on a quad or All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) for those of you folks not from the country) with my dad at his step-brothers ranch outside the salinas valley. It. is. gorgeous. And to be clear, when we hunt it’s mostly tootling around on the 4-wheelers, taking in the breathtaking scenery and trying to spot as many different kinds of wildlife as possible (lots of quail, squirrels like they owned the place, a bobcat!, etc). It’s a lot of gorgeous vistas, lots of this:

With the occasional these:

While riding these:

All in all, a positively delightful way to spend a couple days. That is, unless you go down, flip the quad, and have it run over you. Which is what happened to me. The short story is: the front right tire got stuck in a rut while we were going downhill, the quad started rolling, I fell off of it and onto the ground on my back, looked up and saw it coming over me, put my hands up to get it off of me (at this point dad says when he looked back up for me, I was smooshed in half with my legs up near my forehead), sat up with the wind knocked out of me, and watched the quad take about 10 full rotations as it careened down the hill. Needless to say, the thing is totaled. We couldn’t find the seat. It got tangled up in a eucalyptus grove and dad dragged it down to the road.

When it was happening, I wasn’t particularly scared and in fact it felt a teeny bit funny to me (apparently this is how I deal with stressful situations. giggle.) I kept thinking “holy shit, a 4-wheeler is about to RUN over me. this is happening. who does this happen to? what the hell?” But here’s what happened physically: a sore shoulder for a couple of days (turns out quads are heavy!) and couple of bruises that are popping up here and there, but that’s it. This is, to put it bluntly, kind of amazing. People break limbs on quads. They get paralyzed. They die. You get the point. Shit can get gnarly, so to speak. It took me a couple days to be able to process it, but I’ve come away from it with this: damn, my body can handle some stuff. And for that I am incredibly grateful. I am amazed at my body right now.

And I’m trying desperately to hold onto THAT feeling, that feeling of immense gladness for my strong arms and legs, for my flexibility, for my health. I just wish it were easier to do that.

the big visit to my new doctor

Yesterday I had my first doctor’s appointment since diving into the big fatty awesome world of FA. I’ve written before about my nervousness/concern/sheer and total panic about going to a doctor because I know what much of the medical community thinks of fat people.

I made an appointment because I’ve been having some serious pain in both knees for the last week or so. As in, it’s difficult for me to get up and down stairs without being a whiny whinerson. As someone who has been an active person her whole life, and played varsity sports, and never broken a bone, I gotta say this is not good for my poor little soul. I want to recognize that I am still very able-bodied and that I in don’t want to seem ungrateful for the mobility that I do have. However, for me this is some hard-ass shit. I held off on making the appointment for a few days because I thought it would go away, and frankly because I didn’t want to pay someone to take one look at me and tell me to hit the treadmill, tubbo. But it got bad enough, so off I went. I should say, without this FA community, this experience most likely would have been eleventy squillion times worse. In comments to my last post about the doctor, someone directed me to this oh so fabulous resource and I ended up choosing a doctor on the list.

When I followed the nurse to get my vitals taken, I turned around when getting weighed so as to not look at the number, explaining that I didn’t want to know my weight because it can be triggering. The nurse just could not have cared less. “Sure! I love your scarf, where did you get it?” Wait, what? I’m not going to get read the riot act for refusing to participate fully in what almost every single person who goes to the doctor does? Huh, ok. I can work with this. It was actually kind of weird to purposefully not find out my weight. As anyone who has dieted (so…99.9991 percent of the population?) will tell you, when on a diet, the scale becomes a part of your routine (daily, weekly, whatever). Weight Watchers? Shit, the damn meetings START with a weigh in! Curves fitness? Weigh in AND body measurements every month (also an anti-choice organization, but that’s not the immediate point). I have lived with a scale in my bathroom for most of my life. I learned when I would weigh less in the day, what days of the week I would weigh less, which specific reading on the compass to turn and face to weigh less (ok, not that last one, but you get the point). That number was burned into my retinas until the next time I weighed in, crossing my fingers, saying little prayers (to whom exactly, I don’t know, as I’m an atheist…but what do they say? There are no atheists in foxholes. Or on scales, apparently.), already making excuses to whomever was weighing me (“these shoes are heavy.” “I just had a big lunch”) or talking shit to myself (“seriously? You couldn’t lay off that burrito? Lardass. You have SO far to go.”), making promises to be “better this week” and to really focus on harnessing my willpower. Christ, I get tired now just thinking about it.

ANYWAY, I digress. Not knowing my weight – it’s weird. How else am I going to know how much love I deserve, how happy I get to be? Seriously though, we put an incredible amount of emphasis on that number. We memorize it. We lie about it. Hell, I won’t state right here what I think I weigh, and I think I’ve come a damn long way. But maybe I haven’t? Makes me feel like a FA failure (a FAilure?) That’s another post.

So the doctor comes in and I’m pretty nervous. Do I go straight into the whole “I know I’m fat, you don’t have to point it out. I believe we can be healthy at every size. I want to make sure that we’re doing this together and that you’re not making rampant assumptions…” or do I just sit back and see where it goes? I opted for the second. Perhaps out of sheer wussy-ness. Perhaps because I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Either way, it doesn’t matter. She listened to me respectfully. I told her I started running a few months ago and did a 5K, and then got sick about a month ago and pretty much stopped running, hell, stopped moving because I was tired as fuck all the time and felt like hammered dog shit (not in those exact words, but I think she got my point). She then proceeded to basically say “look, you were moving around a lot. Then you stopped. Your body essentially experienced a light trauma and your knees are now all ‘what the fuck?’ and so they’ve gone a little haywire.” (again, not in those exact words, but I got her point) Along with everything else she said, she mentioned “and you have weight pressing down on these joints, and on your hips…” and you know? it absolutely did not feel like she was telling me my weight was the problem. She didn’t say “you have your HUGE ASS weight” or “your overweight body” or anything. She said “your weight.” As in, I have weight! Imagine that. Basically, I’m supposed to take it easy, do a little walking, the recumbent bike when i can, and take ibuprofen. It’s still very frustrating, because I feel like some of my agency has been taken away. I’m now at the mercy of these damn knees and I am all stoked to do the Bay to Breakers in SF in a few weeks and now that’s up in the air. I’m just super pissed and frustrated. Le sigh. But! The doctor’s appointment went well, and for that I am very, very happy.

I’d love to hear your happy doctor stories! The last post I focused on things that make me tired, and while it was extremely important to go there (and to read everyone’s thought provoking and awesome comments!), I’m feeling the need for some positivity. Adipositivity, perhaps? (NSFW! for those not familiar with her work!)

old habits die very very hard

**possible triggering re: disordered eating

The other day I bought pita chips and hummus to bring to a potluck. The cashier was friendly enough, making comments about my purchases in that sort of non-confrontational, pleasant way. Things like, “mmm, pita chips, yum. hummus with pine nuts, looks healthy.” Without batting an eye, I said “yeah, it’s a potluck so there is always a crap shoot with the kinds of food there.” I kind of trailed off but it was very clear to me what I had just done. i justified my food purchase to a total stranger, hoping that she would “get” how healthy I was being. “look! even though i’m fat I eat ‘good’ foods!” I haven’t done this in a while and it completely caught me off guard. It’s not a mystery where this behavior comes from, most likely for any of us who have a history of disordered eating. Talking about food with other people, or eating around other people…it becomes this bizarre ritual wherein you try and tamp down any craving you have and ignore your body and what its trying to tell you. Instead, you eat “appropriate” foods in “appropriate” amounts. And it’s a constant game, this eating thing. You have to make sure at all times that you’re making it very clear that you’re a “good fatty.” Sure, you’re fat, but you’re not taking up more than your fair share of the world’s food, you’re exercising every day, you’re appreciative when someone tells you “but you have such a pretty face,” you’re apologizing for taking up too much space, and on and on.

Working to better my relationship with food (read: refusing to apologize for being hungry, eating what I want when I feel like eating it, paying attention to what my body is telling me it wants, enjoying food and not giving it moral value like “good” and “bad,” etc) has been one of the most difficult things for me in this FA journey, and I know I’m not alone. I’m trying to combat 20 years of a shitty relationship so it’s no wonder i go into apologizing mode. I just haven’t done that in a while and it kicked me in the gut a bit.

Old habit number two: I’ve been sick for the past week and a half or so. It started out as a cold or something, and turned quickly into a nasty cough and laryngitis. I sounded like death warmed over at first, but I think now I’ve cultivated the sexy phone operator voice. Anyway, I’ve been really really tired and this past week, while on vacation up in Seattle, I’ve been sleeping like it’s my job. As in, one day I didn’t get out of bed until noon. I have never slept until noon before and I gotta say, it’s not awful! And even when i sleep in that late, I need a nap after a few hours. I’ve been having real trouble not beating myself up about sleeping so much. Thoughts like “god, lazy slob” and “if you weren’t fat you’d likely be able to beat this cold by now” are constantly creeping in around the edges of my brain, and I have to beat them back with a very stiff “get the fuck out! you have no business here! also, you’re wrong!” every couple of hours. It’s actually exhausting and making me more tired – see how much unhealthier we are when we’re mean to ourselves? Hey, maybe that whole “shaming fat people into losing weight” thing doesn’t actually work! (end sarcasm)

So anyway, I want to make sure I’m not only documenting the a-ha and “I’m awesome” moments on this here space of mine. It’s important to get into the uncomfortable and ugly stuff. Old habits die hard, this is true. And they come swirling back into your world when you’re not expecting them.

Other habits that are hard to break? Lemme hear ‘em! Maybe if we put them out into the universe, they’ll stay away forever?

things that make me tired

I’m tired of spilling my heart out and explaining FA to friends to then have them say, “Did you hear about the HCG diet? My sister is on it and she’s lost tons of weight!” *blink blink. Or “i don’t understand why seriously obese people don’t just start eating right instead of complaining all the time.”

I’m tired of booths and seats in restaurants that make it extremely uncomfortable to sit and enjoy dinner. I’m tired of having to scan the room before I sit down to figure out where I CAN actually sit.

I’m tired of having only two actual, physical stores to shop in (neither of which are in my city) and instead am relegated to online shopping, wherein sizes are never consistent and I spend tons of money and time getting clothes shipped to me, then shipping them back because they don’t fit or don’t look like they did on the website, then getting NEW sizes shipped back to me, and holding my breath that those will fit, then finally getting an outfit together 3 weeks later.

I’m tired of people snarking on other peoples’ clothing choices, eating habits, and lifestyle decisions.

I’m tired of a lack of people in my real (not virtual) life who get what it’s like to be fat.

I’m tired of the serious dearth of good, performance-style sports bras. Seriously, I have one.

I realize most (all?) of these are #firstworldprobs, as the kids say these days, but they are my reality right now. And sometimes i’m just fucking tired.

come be tired with me! what are you tired of?

my first 5k

So I did my first 5K on saturday! My one goal (well, apart from finishing it) was to run it more than i walked it. I met that goal, walking about 1/3 of it and running the other 2/3. My sister did it with me and it was a really fun experience. People cheering and yelling and banging cow bells, little kids and old folks and fat men and women, all just out enjoying the sunset and the awesome views. We finished in probably the last third and I gotta say, I knew there would be some competitive thoughts running through my head but it wasn’t as hard to work through them as I thought it would be. “eek, there are only like 50 people behind you” and “what if you’re the last one crossing the finish line?” popped in to my head but I was able to just calm down, breathe, and remind myself that I’ve never done anything like this before and that the point isn’t to blitz by everyone, it’s to focus internally and be present. Like yoga while jogging! Yogging?

I keep coming back to just how far I’ve come in a couple years. Not that long ago, i would have NEVER thought to do something like this, for fear of looking like a total asshole. A fatty who had no business whatsoever running in public. I would have been completely shredded the first time someone looked me up and down. I would have felt like a total poser in dry-fit and running shoes. It is, simply put, absolutely mind-blowing how we can interact with the world in a totally different manner when we decide we don’t give a single fuck about how we “should” do something and what is “appropriate.” I’m not saying there aren’t fucks I give every now and then, but on Saturday, those went away and it was delightful. I am thankful for a body that allows me to do these kinds of things, and I am thankful for a wonderful 5K partner, and I am thankful for my health. And so ends one of the sappiest entries I’ve had in a long time.

getting my picture taken

I’m uploading lots of pictures to my work’s Facebook page right now, and in doing so am looking through the past year’s worth of photos of me. It got me thinking about getting my picture taken. I used to hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. As in, there is a period starting toward the end of college and through the next few years (I’d say 5 or so?) with virtually NO pictures of me.

I heard somewhere recently that when people (mostly women-identified folks) look over pictures that are just taken to decide if it’s a good shot, they look only at themselves and ignore the rest of the people in the picture. We are obsessed with coming across as “perfect” in photos. One slight imperfection and it’s a heinous piece of trash that needs to be deleted immediately. I’m certainly guilty of that kind of thinking, and while I get my picture taken now and don’t cringe like I used to, it can still be a struggle for me to not immediately go into fix-it mode.

Double chins. That dreaded phrase. It’s the first thing my eyes would go to anytime I looked at a picture of myself. Well, that and my arms, and my broad shoulders, and my short legs, and just all of the damn space I took up! I’m a whale! Clearly, this is some harmful behavior and it’s something I still struggle with sometimes. I remember someone telling me to tilt my head forward a little bit in pictures to get rid of that horrifying, earth-shatteringly awful double chin (/sarcasm). I confess that I still do it. It feels wrong to even type that out. How can I be moving forward in a journey to fat and size acceptance when I still feel the need to try and contort my body to fit into a more socially acceptable vision of beauty? The two feel incongruous to me. It’s not as though I go walking around every day with my head tilted forward so that no one can see the hideousness that is my double chin.

I’ve done only one OOTD here, and my apprehension about my own image in pictures is certainly a big part of the reason why. Over at The Rotund, Marianne talks about the importance of taking our picture, of normalizing our bodies so that they don’t feel like some sort of scary monster who must remain hidden. I certainly agree. Those of us who are fat are defying a systemic hatred of OMGFATZOBESITY just by existing. That’s pretty powerful stuff, when you think about it. But it’s important to take it a step further and not just exist, but to put yourself out there proudly if you want. One way I’m doing that is by trying very hard not to jump back into my old habits of tearing myself down when I look at pictures. Yup, in some pics I have my eyes half closed, or am making a weird face, or don’t have all my lumps and bumps smoothed out. And while this may not seem like a piece of radial activism, it is radical to me. And right now that’s what I’m after.

What about you all? Did you refuse to be photographed like me? What shifted? Or has a shift not happened yet? Do you take pics of yourself on a regular basis? I know that for me, just looking through pics of other fatties on blogs and on Tumblr has been absolutely mind-blowingly fantastic. Some day I would like to join those ranks.

sometimes you just need a break

I haven’t posted in about two weeks, which is the longest break i’ve taken since perhaps November of last year. And this past week is certainly the first this year that I didn’t meet my new years intention of posting once a week in 2011. And you know? I’m totally ok with it. I was gettin’ pretty bummed there for a little while, what with the constant shit-storm being lobbed at low income folks, women of color, fatties, etc. And while my instinct is generally to dive into the FA movement head first, spending glorious hours online in this community of awesomeness, I felt myself pulling away a little bit. I’m still not exactly sure why, but my first thought is that i was simply tired. This shit takes work. It takes work to care, and it takes work to fight a system set up to frankly push anyone who may be on the margins away, so far away that they don’t have a voice. I don’t mean to pretend like I’m a martyr and that my problems even come close to the struggles others face on a daily basis, and I am privileged in all sorts of areas of my life, but it does just become really heavy on your soul after a while.

Last Friday, my office had a retreat and for the afternoon we had a training on how oppression shows up in the body. Essentially (truly, this is a 30 second breakdown of what took the instructor over 30 minutes to explain to us, so please know that I’m sure I’m leaving out some pretty important stuff, but I’m trying to nail the basics), our bodies are conditioned, through hundreds of years on this earth, to do one of five things when we come into contact with oppression, in whatever form: fight, flight, freeze, appease, dissociate. Apparently our bodies deal with oppression (racial, class, gender, ability, size, etc) in much the same way that they deal with trauma, as oppression is a form of social trauma. How we react has almost nothing to do with our “thinking” brain and almost everything to do with our “animal” brain. It’s our gut reaction, one that has worked for our ancestors for years and years. In order to start to dismantle that animal reaction (if one chooses to do that), a hell of a lot of work must be done such that we can choose which of the five reactions to use at any given time, depending on the circumstances.

Up until recently, whenever I dealt with oppression because of my size, my animal instinct was to dissociate from my body. I’m fairly certain this is common among the fats. If you can remove yourself from your physical body – the body that is being oppressed when it tries to fit into a seat and can’t, the body that is being yelled at on the street for being “unattractive” – you can protect yourself. You can protect your heart and your soul from just getting crushed. But this, for me, was dangerous, because it allowed me to talk SO much shit about my body because, you see, it really wasn’t even my body. It was just…something else. Not even someONE else. Just a thing. And it’s easy to say awful and mean things to a thing, isn’t it?

So I think this is what I was doing when everything just started to feel like a bit much. I went back to my historical animal instinct and dissociated, I can’t point to any one particular incident, I think it was just an aggregation of a bunch of little things. And it must be said that our animal instincts aren’t ever really wrong. They’re what has worked for us a thousand times over, otherwise we likely wouldn’t do them! We’re smart creatures. Our ancestors were smart creatures. We want to survive. So we do what allows us to survive. For me, it was pulling away from examining my body in the world, from engaging in the FA community and movement for a couple weeks.

Fortunately, I have another tool in my toolkit when it comes to dealing with oppression, and that tool is to fight. So I’m back to fighting, and I think it’s because of my dissociation for a little while that I am able to say the following. Bring it.

quick hit: self-compassion in the NYT

Tara Parker-Pope posted an article on the New York Times website yesterday called “Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges.” I don’t read her stuff that often, but a co-worker alerted me to this post and I gotta say, I like it! It’s not new information to those of us in the FA movement, but it’s always awesome when mainstream media and press get it right. Or, mostly right.

Essentially, research shows that when we are nicer to ourselves, we enjoy less stress in our lives and pay more attention to what our bodies actually want in terms of food. What I don’t like is that the researchers Ms. Parker-Pope speaks with frame the narrative using weight-loss as the ultimate goal.

“Self-compassion is the missing ingredient in every diet and weight-loss plan,” said Jean Fain, a psychotherapist and teaching associate at Harvard Medical School who wrote the new book “The Self-Compassion Diet” (Sounds True publishing). “Most plans revolve around self-discipline, deprivation and neglect.”

The problem with this line of thinking is that it seems to ignore the fact that self-compassion is important regardless of dieting, weight loss goals, etc. (though of course one has to frame it that way if one is hoping to sell a diet book). The ultimate goal need not be weight-loss, the ultimate goal should simply be loving yourself more. Of course, Ms. Fain is right in part. Self-compassion doesn’t currently exist in any diet plan that I’m aware of, but to me that’s not the point. Still, though, good to know folks recognize that diets fail for a variety of reasons, most notably (to me, anyway) because they are rooted in self-criticism and a call to “just have more willpower.”

do friends set fat friends up?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately.

I was at a wedding a while back and the bride put me at a table with this rather cute single guy, but told me when she and I were going through the table listings (I was getting the low down on all of her friends, all of her fiance’s friends, the family drama, and such) that she was hoping to set him up with one of her friends from college, despite the fact that she knows I am single and “looking,” whatever that means. so, yeah. she mentioned it, we moved on, and ordered another round of drinks.

then, the wedding. it was so lovely and i had a great time. chatted with this dude for a while, danced my ass off, ate good food, and just generally rocked it. my necklace received a lot of compliments. as well it should, it’s a fantastic necklace.

A couple of days ago the same friend wanted to set that same dude up with another person we both know (good christ, I sound like I’m in middle school). so anyway, this nagging feeling has been hanging around me for a while and i’ve figured out where it’s coming from. i’ve had this happen before – my best friends set up another friend of mine with this single guy they knew. turns out it was just about the most delightful and perfect match ever, as they are gloriously happy and i love to see their partnership and love for each other. the fact that i wasn’t set up with him isn’t the point. and the fact that the bride tried to set up her single friend with two other people isn’t technically the point either. the point is that it makes me feel invisible. in a very stark and raw and and hit-me-over-the-head kind of way. I have never been set up with someone through a friend. I actually asked those friends (the non-bride friends) why they never set me up with anyone in all the years that I had known them, and the short answer I got back was that no one was “good enough” for me. Which of course is coming from a place of total love and adoration, but it certainly doesn’t allow me to decide who is and isn’t “good enough.” I hear time and time again from my friends how awesome i am, how much i make them laugh, how caring i am, how great blah blah (i know, rough life that i’m just FORCED to listen to people tell me all the things they love about me, bear with me).

I’m not sure, however, that my friends see me as a partner/lover/girlfriend to anyone they know.

And it’s not their fault. We live in a world where the fat girl isn’t seen as a suitable partner/lover/girlfriend most of the time. Shit, sometimes I don’t see myself that way.

Before I go further, I feel I should state unequivocally what this post is NOT saying:
1. I am not saying that any of this is done with intention.
2. I am not saying my friends are responsible for finding me a man.

What am I wondering is…do people set their fat friends up with other people? I realize this is an incredibly general statement, and that there are individual experiences that vary a great deal from mine. So, I’d love to hear them! Is this your experience as well? And if you aren’t single, how did you meet your person? Maybe people just don’t set people up anymore, skinny, fat, or otherwise? maybe that is an antiquated way of doing things and I just don’t have a barometer for these kinds of things? Totally possible. School me!

the fat body and running

I’ve had a bit of a relationship with running. We’ve been on and off (ok, mostly off) for a long time. I think, “running seems so fabulous. so…effortless, so…just me and the road, so tranquil” and then i do it and think, “what the ever loving fresh hell?! this hurts! i quit.” And then I go, “but it’s free! and so many of your friends do it! maybe if you just kept at it a little longer you would find the runner inside yourself!” So i do it some more. But then I get frustrated because if you’re fat and want to run, your choices for running clothes are, um, zero. It’s cotton for all fatties! We want you to lose weight and stop being a burden on society, what with all your health and your obesity and your OMGDEATHZ, but we’ll be damned if we’re going to make it easier on you by offering, I don’t know, cute yet functional and breathable running clothes in your size? please. (athleta, I’m looking at YOU)

So, yes, that is the relationship in a nutshell. Of course it’s more complicated than that, but those are the cliffs notes. I started running (and I should say by “running” i mean jogging and sometimes walking/jogging, not, like, sprinting with the speed of the wind or anything) after I graduated from college a little over 12 years ago. The purpose was losing weight. And I actually enjoyed it for the most part. I had no idea what I was doing (other than putting one foot in front of the other in a speedy manner and propelling myself forward, I mean), but it was a nice way to see and learn the neighborhood a few times a week. But then I stopped, for whatever reason I don’t remember, and I gained all the weight I had lost back (apparently that’s how diets work? /sarcasm). So the next time I picked up running, it was really really hard. It hurt because I didn’t have the proper gear and because, newsflash, when you have jiggly bouncy parts they tend to both jiggle and bounce more when you’re running. But I pushed myself because I was raised with the old “no pain, no gain” adage. This, of course, made me hate running because it came to represent yet another way I was failing – failing to lose weight, failing to have the better body, failing to enjoy a sport that so many do, etc etc. So I didn’t start running again for a long time.

Fast forward to grad school and I’m surrounded by, like, tons of wonderful friends who love to run! They do marathons, even! So I think “ok, this can’t be that bad.” In the Northwestern United States it’s like a damn rule that you run and love it and exclaim it to the world. I didn’t stop much to think about what I felt about running, and that was because I hadn’t yet started the mental heavy lifting and FA work that I did toward the end of grad school. So I started running again, doing the Couch to 5K training program that I had heard such wonderful things about. I quit that after about a month, not necessarily because I didn’t like the program, but because it’s hard to stay motivated when you’re running by yourself and I always felt awful running with other people because I, inevitably, would be much slower than anyone else and dragging people down to my level felt like shit. I had one friend I would run with that was awesome – she repeatedly told me that it didn’t matter the pace I ran, she just liked hanging out and she could always run ahead and then come back. And I believed her, but it didn’t matter. I still felt like a slow fatty mc slowpoke and I hated being that.

Now we’re here at this evening, where I just finished my second run under the Couch to 5K program with my sister. And I feel awesome. And this is the heaviest I’ve been in my whole life (i think, i don’t own a scale). This is certainly the “worst” shape I’ve been in in my life, but I feel pretty good! Part of that is because I finally get to look the part and however silly that sounds, it’s huge (pun intended). Nike carries extended sizes (granted, only up to a 3X, so I know that leaves out a big ‘ol portion of folks) and I purchased my first ever pair of dri-fit pants (hah, i wrote that as “dry-fat” pants at first). Anyway, dri-fit! That shit is magic! Does the rest of the world know about this? Anyway, yes, I get to wear cute clothes that are performance driven, which means that it makes it more comfortable to run. Which is awesome. The other awesome piece in all of this? I’ve decided to be nicer to myself and just go with the flow in terms of pacing. My sister runs ahead of me and I just plod along, not really giving a shit. And? There’s less pain associated with the jiggly bouncy parts because I’m not running super fast! genius! Last night when we went for our first run, I was really struggling with those old thoughts, “man, if you hadn’t let yourself get this bad, this wouldn’t be as hard right now” and “look how slow you’re going, does this even count as running?” and on and on. And I imagine I’ll still struggle with those thoughts now and then. But in the in-between moments, I’ve decided to be kind to my body. And look around and enjoy the actual ACT of running. It’s been kind of rainy the last couple nights, and running with a little mist blowing around, and twinkly lights around the lake, and the smell of bbq and weed and fresh cut grass? Not too shabby. And this time around, I’m not running to lose weight. I’m running to move my body more and enjoy the fresh air and spend more time with my sister. I also realize that i have a body that allows me to do this, so this is an ableist post. There are others that can’t do what I’m doing and I want to recognize that, while also celebrating this new piece of FA for me.