inspiration. [#11]

"it’s counter intuitive, but true, that losing weight is very emotionally taxing. i read a lot of blogs by others who have also experienced a similar weight-loss and feel this sort of anticlimactic remorse. it’s like setting out for a long journey in which you are isolated and consumed by this quest and when you finally reach your destination, well…it’s akin to being reintroduced into society. it’s exciting, frustrating and invariably disappointing. that’s kinda how i feel sometimes – like i was gone in this quest and, now that i’m back, i have no choice but to acknowledge how different my life is and how differently others receive me. i also have to acknowledge how it’s not different in the ways i thought it would be."

[feed me i'm cranky: big fat musings]

annabel's entire post really resonates with me. what i'm also struggling with a bit right now is a weird kind of delayed guilt for gaining the weight, treating myself so poorly in the first place - and, above all, failing to realise how far gone i was.

"i was still fat!" i exclaimed while looking at a picture of me a few weeks ago. the pic had been taken in the spring of last year or so, when i weighed about 12kg less than i did when i first started. "yes, you were", said the bf. and bizarrely enough? that hurt me. in some totally warped way, i'd somehow thought that no one had noticed that i was overweight. i mean: i hadn't. really. but of course they had, including my most favourite person, the bf. "you were actually the biggest person i'd ever dated", he added. "did you ever consider not doing so because of my weight?" i asked. "yes, i did. but before i could come to a concluion, i had already fallen in love with you."

phew. that stung for a moment, too. i'm thankful that he's that honest, though.

i've been thinking about this, since then: i could have missed out on this awesome relationship (the best i've ever had) because of my weight (and this would have been his loss, obviously, too). now i am nowhere near blaming my fat for things that didn't work out in the past (and if my fat is to blame for stuff, i quite likely will never know, anyway), but it makes me sad, retroactively. and wonder about the now, too.

i, too, believe that i have not fundamentally changed. i am still vegetarian, i still suck at paying bills, still talk too loud and i can't, for the life of me, answer email in a timely fashion. however, i am now superdedicated to being healthy, i eat in a very specific way, dress differently, work out. and above all, the way people perceive me has fundamentally changed. and i still just can't seem to find a balance (yet) between their image of me and mine.