My pattern has to do with how I handle failure. You see, I'm a lot like every fat chick you've ever met. I'm afraid to fall flat on my arse. Not just 'cause it would hurt (uh, but it would), but because getting up is not a pretty sight.
I've already talked about how I was thin through high school and college. I even lost all the extra pounds I packed on in adulthood once. That lasted about 15 minutes. Seems like it anyhow.
When I lost the weight, I was at a previous job. A job where I made a lot of friends, was enjoying my work. I left to move up in the world, to take a promotion at another place of employment. I was already starting to gain the weight back, but I wasn't back to buying clothes at a tent supply store yet.
It's been four years since I left that job. And I. Have. Not. Been. Back. That's sad, frankly. I've avoided social gatherings that I would have loved to attend, because I don't want them to see that I failed. Take my timeline a bit further back ... to high school. I have a lot of friends I keep in touch with from back east, where I am from, via Facebook. They see a close-up of my face ... never the whole bod. I never appear in photos with my family. When I go home to see my family, I don't advertise that I'm going, because I don't want people to see me. If they do get wind of it, I go out of my way to lie to them and say that, sure, I'll be there ... but I'm booked solid with things to do while I'm there. Why? Because I don't want them to see that I have failed. Why taint their memory of a thin me with the gruesome reality?
I'm coming up on a year soon with this blog. Started in August 2009, and in November 2009 and February 2010, I came back with a vengeance. I will be motivated! I will do the work! I will lose the weight! And then I fall off the plan wagon.
Pre-blog, I used to keep journals about my weight loss journey(s). I'd start out strong, lose a few pounds, then go back to my evil ways. The journals would fall down into the abyss between my nightstand and bed. I'd dig them out (usually when searching for my glasses or an earring), dust them off, and ... rip out the pages I had written on.
Why? So I didn't have to read about my failure. And so that others, if they so happened on my journals, didn't know that I had failed.
So--I'm not here today to announce grand intentions. I'm not going on a bandwagon to say that I've figured it out, that I've made a decision to choose health and activity instead of junk and tv-watching.
I'm here just to say that I'm not going to delete my blog. I'm going to have to just be OK with leaving it all out there, for people to count the months between blog entries and count how many pounds I didn't lose.
That's actually a heckuva start for me.
Never, never give up. Way to go.
ReplyDeleteBeen there, lived that.
ReplyDeleteGlad I stumbled on this little patch of the web, I'll be back to
see what's next for you--whenever that might be.