Rant #1

sophia_helix wrote something brave this morning about size and self-perception that not only hit close to home, it also made me think that perhaps I might have something to add.

I've been that person (and sometimes I still am); ashamed of my body, disgusted with what it says about my life history, seeing the flesh I'm in as the accumulated evidence of failure and weakness. I'm still there in some respects, having only traveled halfway toward the body I'd like to live in. I remember that disconnect whenever I saw myself in a photo and was forced to see my body from the outside, forced to acknowledge that the dark hot embarrassed thoughts I had when I looked down at my rolls and my infant-soft proportions were based in truth: I was burying the familiar lines of my body underneath material evidence of how much I sucked.

Right now, halfway between my heaviest and my goal, I've maybe gained some perspective on the situation that I couldn't see before. I'm sure it will still be a confusing jumble, but maybe I'll say something that clicks.

I don't have answers, because those answers are always going to be personal. But I can at least tell you how I started walking away from that place.

( First and foremost you must realize that America is set up for the manufacture of human veal. )

Up next: rants on the Zen of human body maintenance, and the lack of mirroring images for women in media (note to self: lack of Tara-sized women; tall or muscular women, cushy women in non-mom roles, Firefly as a (sad) standout with Zoe and Kaylee as healthy body-types; standard commercial pairing of doughy man and slim wife; commercially-perpetuated myth that only slim women can have fun in public or sex in private (we don't think that only white women in chinos clean their houses, do we? then why do we buy this?) maybe wrap up with the fact that BMI is a sick joke that feeds into the perception that the only 'healthy' woman is a thin weedy one).

Rant #2

( The Zen of Human Body Maintenance )