I Am A Liar
Let’s start with the honest to goodness truth, I am a liar and a hypocrite. And now that I said it, I can dive in. I don’t mean to say that I lie about everything, just some things. For example, I lie to my classes about the rounds expected of them. I lie to my kids about the time it will take to do the simplest chores. And I regularly say “I’ll be there in a minute,” when I know damn well its going to be at least five minutes. My lies are fairly harmless but sometimes the lies are bigger and the hypocrisy is something I have to face straight on.
The past year has been one of transitions and transformations. I have changed the way I run my business, I have accepted my fate as a parent of teenagers. I have have spent times in the mountains, and I have spent a lot of weekends out experiencing new things. I ate good food and drank amazing beer. I have stayed up all night and I have snacked on nachos laughing until I cried. All of those nights added up. In those months I gained some chub, some extra fluff. I don’t know how much because I haven’t wanted to weigh myself. But my shorts are too tight and most of my jeans don’t fit. And for the first time I felt really frustrated with myself. I felt frustrated because every time I looked in the mirror I saw a reflection I wasn’t happy with. I was frustrated because I knew it was happening and I didn’t change my weekends. I was frustrated because all the hard work I had put into myself was being torn down by the person looking back at me.
Now I have to face myself. I have stood on my podium and preached about loving your body as it is. I have preached about not judging yourself based on the number on the scale. I have lectured about finding confidence in the person you are. Suddenly I saw some holes in my outlook. I couldn’t sweet talk the time I tried slipping into my favorite jeans, only to have it come to a dead stop, sticky, sweaty wrestling match, which I won out of pure competition. I pried and swore and finally buttoned those fuckers. But I didn’t feel like I won anything when I took one look in the mirror and realized I had actually been defeated. I felt insecure and unhappy. I completely looked through the person I had spent so much time building up and immediately started to pick apart everything that was wrong.
I have to say, the chub came from good times and shared memories. There was beer drank and conversations had. There was snacks served and laughing that followed. There was hikes done and rewards at the end. And all of this was tipping my set point. It started slowly, and I barely noticed. Life got busy. I was making time and sometimes making excuses. My weekends were spilling into the weekdays. I was prioritizing my instant gratification and impulsiveness and my body didn’t like that, it wasn’t happy. I frankly I didn’t always care, I was enjoying life. But I wasn’t happy in myself. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like looking at my faults instead of my strengths. I didn’t like looking at my weaknesses instead of my successes. I was looking at myself and not sure if I liked her. I am smarter than I was before. I carry strengths and knowledge that are far beyond the reflection. What I needed was to remind myself what my strengths are. I needed to ask myself for these answers and not look to anyone else to answer them for me, even though I kinda wanted to.
Here it is, this is the best version of me yet. I have some extra chub and I can pretend that I don’t care, but I do. And instead of spending my spring worried about it, I am picking up the pieces. I realized that loving myself isn’t a guaranteed, so every day I look at myself in the mirror and I complement that person looking back at me. She is so much more than the fluff. She is so much more than the number on the scale. She can do more and is more than any of those things will ever show. And it is important that I remind her. I have also cleaned up my diet. I didn’t jump onto a cleanse or a packaged food meal plan. I made sure that my weekends were confined to my days off and my late nights were seldom. I saved my late night snacking to be enjoyed over a laugh with my favorites.
Today my jeans are still tight and my face is a bit rounder. But my confidence is up. I care. I look in the mirror and see things that I don’t want to see. I look in the mirror and sometimes have a hard time falling in love with the person looking back at me. But this is me and these are some of the highs and lows that we all go through. I have had some huge highs and I’ve had some dark lows. I am not perfect. I will have moments of success and moments of failure. I will struggle with relationships and friendships. I will struggle with parenting and house work. But, like most of us, I am just trying to do the best I can. And sometimes I need to fall down to see how far I’ve gone. And I am honestly happy with the places I’ve been and the place I am right now.