Weight A Minute!

There are things I enjoy in life: sex, good friends, having sex with good friends, booze, sharing booze with good friends, having sex after drinking booze, having sex with good friends after drinking booze...eh, you get the idea. Something else I love is food. To me, one of the biggest pleasures in life is good food, and I am no more likely to quit indulging in food than I am in any of the above.

Why am I telling you this? Because the American obsession with "weight" has been driving me crazy lately. Weight is just a number. More specifically, it is a measure of the force of gravitational pull on your mass. If Americans are so obsessed with this number, why don't more of them live at the top of Pikes Peak? At 14,115 feet you weight considerably less than you do at sea level. This obsession with the actual number seems to be generational. My mother's generation relied on one thing: the scale. I don't even OWN a scale, nor have I ever.

Where the fuck am I going with all this? Hang on, we're getting there.

When we were preparing to move into our new house, PSD's mother (genetically petite) said that she would like to see us each lose twenty pounds (random arbitrary number).

Now let me fill in some background for you.

I am by no means petite; I am 5'8" tall and curvy from head to toe. I have been working out since I was 19 years old. Until I had my daughter, I was in the habit of regularly attending 5:45 am spinning classes and after I had her, I would still make it to the gym at least 3 times a week. In the past year and a half, I have been lazy as hell (new relationship, please read previous posts) about working out plus I have a thyroid condition that wreaked havoc on my body until they got it regulated. I have put on quite a few pounds, but I am still in reasonably good shape.

PSD is a cyclist. When I met him, he was riding 100 miles at a time; the only thing he rides these days is me. But despite being lazy the past year and a half (new relationship, use common sense), he is still in reasonably good shape, too.

PSD's mom has an unhealthy obsession with weight. She is one of those naturally petite people who feels the need to eat tiny portions of food and count every morsel she ingests. If she wants a piece of cake, she can't just eat the cake, she has to give us a speech justifying WHY she can eat the cake.

I know his mother meant nothing by her comment, but it got me thinking. What would a number -20 actually do for me?

Would it help me earn more money? No.
Would it make my daughter listen to me at bedtime? No.
Would it remember to take out the garbage for me? No.

So why do I need this number -20 at all?

Now I enjoy fitting into my clothes, who doesn't? I don't weigh myself, I prefer to judge by which jeans I can squeeze into and how they look. I know that many outfits that didn't fit at the height of the thyroid debacle now fit again, so I am pleased. I see how I look in photos now, compared to last year, and I am pleased. But last year, at the height of it all, I didn't feel badly about myself. I just simply got some new clothes that fit and looked good and moved on.

So why should I chase this -20?

I have never counted calories. Life is too short for me to worry about how many M&M'S® I am stuffing in my face during a PMS attack. I believe in living with no regrets, this rule applies to food, as well. Who wants to be on their death bed and worrying about all the delicious food they never tried? I have always been a healthy eater (with a healthy dose of sweets here and there) and I just stay active. Exercising is for staying fit, not for furthering your unhealthy body image or masking your eating disorder.

I spent a good portion of my life as a Barbie Girl. I am tall, I was always thin and I am very pretty.

In high school I did a lot of local modeling, a good portion of it for swimsuit stores. I was a size 5 with a gravity defying C cup.
Was I any happier? No.
In my twenties I maintained my figure and added a fantastic wardrobe and a knack for accessorizing to the whole package.
Was I any happier? No.
Four months after giving birth to a ten pound child, I was two sizes smaller than the day I got pregnant.
Was I any happier? No.

Facts:
I can shop in normal clothing stores, I do not have to resort to stores that have the word BARN in the name.
My ass does not yet have its own zip code.
No one has ever run away screaming upon seeing me naked.
I am more confident now than at any other time of my life.

So what does -20 do for me?
NOTHING.

I make no apologies for who I am.
I am comfortable in my skin.
I am happy.
I refuse to sacrifice that feeling for a number.

Do Unto Others and Other Trite Advice (but good advice, too)

I apologize in advance for the extremely unsexxxy post, but it's as much a part of my process as telling PSD I was wearing my "lucky bra" on our first date so he'd know I was going to put out.

As I sit on the precipice of the next stage of my life (more about that later), it seems prudent to reflect upon what I have learned since the last stage of my life

Never Settle

Silent resentment is the #1 killer of relationships; also, 42% of statistics are made up on-the-spot. But seriously, why would you settle? If you don't chase your dreams, who will?

Don't Break For Someone Who Isn't Willing to Bend For You
Nothing in the world is as valuable as your own sanity and your own security. Never sacrifice that for anyone; that's not love, that's not even friendship. You deserve better, I don't care what who you are or what you've done...you deserve better.

Put Yourself Out There
This isn't really something new, but it always bears repeating. I have never been a "sit back and wait for life" kind of girl, but this has never been more important than in the last two years. Your life fell apart...boo-fucking-hoo. Now are you going to sit on the couch eating Cheetos and waiting for something good to meander by, or are you going to go out, seize life by the studded collar and make something good come to you? That's a no-brainer for me, because I would never eat Cheetos (the artificial color horrifies me). Meeting PSD was certainly a wonderful gift from the Universe, but would that have ever happened if I wasn't out there, seeking something?

Newsflash, folks. No one is just naturally lucky at life. All good things are the result of positive thinking, meeting people, networking and a lot of hard work.

Embrace Change
In the past year, I have been fortunate enough to have fallen into a circle of friends; one of them, a witty intelligent woman who has also had life-altering changes in her life within the past couple of years. I like to think this was no accident as we have much in common (aside from all being beautiful and Jewish) and can borrow so much from one another. Some would call it fate, but I like to call it Universal Design.

When we stop fighting and just sit down and shut the fuck up, the Universe has an amazingly uncanny ability to deliver just what we need. I like to think the evolution of my relationship with Clothespin was no accident, it was exactly how it was supposed to happen. The transition from sleazy hookup to genuine friendship to quasi-relationship opened my heart back up. This allowed me to make the small leap from quasi-relationship to what PSD and I share today.

In the past two years, I have let a vast variety of people into my life and have been rewarded in ways I could never have before imagined.

The Karma of “Do Unto Others”
This is the biggie. I am sure PSD had his doubts about me, at some point...and I don’t blame him. My Unapologetically Me strategy involves blunt honesty, so he knows my past. We even had a talk when we became exclusive, about my fears of monotony, errr...monogamy, and why I can’t imagine myself sleeping with just one man for the rest of my life. And this is where Irony kicks in (we’ll talk about her cousin, Karma, in just a bit)...because since that talk, since he told me he understood and was willing to explore options together, I haven’t even thought about another man like that. Crazy, right? What my single gal explorations had taught me (go back and read the entries, people...stop being lazy) was that I did not cheat on my husband because I needed sex that badly, it was affection and understanding I needed. Zoom back to PSD, and I have the whole package: love, understanding, more affection than I know what to do with and an amazingly fulfilling sex life. Does that mean we can’t spend the rest of our lives exploring sexual avenues together? NO! It does mean that I won’t need to look elsewhere for what I need, because I have it all.

What does this have to do with Karma and “Do Unto Others?” Recently, a former lover asked why my morals had shifted so far, I replied, “PSD is a great guy, he doesn’t deserve that.” It hadn’t even hit me until that moment; in the back of my head, every time I cheated on my ex, I knew in the back of my head, he DID deserve it...and each time it was a giant passive-aggressive FUCK YOU. It took me eight long years to get to that point. Eight years of him fooling around with other girls and then “coming clean” to me. Eight years of forgetting to come home because he was high somewhere with God-knows-who doing God-knows-what. Eight years of him making me feel like shit for having the humanity to find other men attractive, even though I never let another man even kiss me [Untrue; once, someone did kiss me. I laid him out with one punch right after.] while he openly stared at and commented upon women he saw. The first time I cheated on him, it was revenge, plain and simple. Then it just became a drug after that; he would make me feel bad, I would get my high. I never felt bad because I knew, in my heart, he would do it to me, too. I was just evening the score. Karma isn’t a bitch, friends...she is a nasty cunt who is PMSing and has no chocolate. That’s the reason my ex is still alone and stalking me like the rancid psycho he is, while I have been lucky enough to find someone who loves me, adores me and most importantly, understands me.

"Why the somber, yet enlightening reflection? Are you dying, Fyre?"

No, even better! PSD and I are moving in together at the end of the month. We have found our own house to begin our life together.

Imagine the possibilities!