Shedding Pounds (And Why I'll Never Be Small Again)

Getting shirt-stuck in a dressing room and inheriting a dad's crazy-strong quads is a gift, not a curse.

This is wisdom.

"Be shorter." (5 feet, 10 inches is too tall).

"Be smaller." (size 10 is a no, 8 isn't enough, a 6 means you're too lazy to be a 4).

This was the unconscious mantra held for far too many years.

Unaware in my teens and twenties, I fed this language directly to my mind every single day.

Understanding that physical health mattered was never a question ~

I lived a sports-bound and active way of life always.

However,

as a teen on the way to a fateful (and later grateful)

5 feet, 10 inches and college-freshman-more-than-15 pounds,

the sense of being shamefully big felt oh-so-real.

I pulled myself in and said, "be shorter, be smaller".

Yes, shorter. Let's live in the humor of that for a moment; it didn't work for Peter Brady in the other direction so I am not sure why I thought it would work for me.

Yes, smaller. Let's relish in further laughter for an extra moment; smaller in the male-direction is ironically listed by society as not-so-great.

Looking back, it is so desperately sad; it led me to narrowness in other ways:

say less,

soften your voice,

wear black & flats,

don't stick out,

hunch your shoulders,

put your eyes down.

Wisdom in my mid-30s and early 40's flipped all of this on a dime.

Every single motivation for my physical body evolved.

I fell in love with life, the world and, more & most importantly, myself.

This, by the way,

was always the instinct,

it simply felt too scary up to this point.

I now know me; I know what I am about.

My thighs are big enough to take solo hikes in the trickiest of circumstances.

My gaze can lift, with enough space between my chin & chest, to own my presence.

I look down and the distance from my hips to heels feels uniquely mine.

The textured and touchable parts of my being remind me that I am brave and strong,

and the journey that got me here reminds me that empathy and love is THE ONLY WAY.

That shirt-stuck, dramatic moment I mentioned at the front of this post...

yeah, that happened; a cute shirt met my big lats and I almost didn't make it out.

Those lats, that match my thighs, and that come from a dad who taught me to love life & myself,

got me up a mountain last week.

I will never be small again and, ironically, I feel lighter than ever.