Acceptance/Mass Neuroses

So this is what acceptance looks like!  I finally have long stretches where my heart is at peace, my mind not whirring.  I think it was getting the keepsake letter and accepting that it was written so much in the past tense.  And Kaveh reading it and saying, “I don't doubt you were both head-over-heels in love, but he is no longer in love with you.”  You would think I would be in a tailspin but I’m not.  I sighed a deep audible sigh and, with that sigh, the last of my illusions and hopes were expelled from my body.  Now I just need to pick up the pieces.  

It reminds me of a piece I wrote late last winter. 

I am lying here in pieces.  I am a mess.  The stress finally got to me.  Everyone else saw the cracks - they warned me I couldn't burn the candle at both ends indefinitely.  I am not Jack - he does that whole jumping over the flame thing without getting burned.  I just rolled and rolled myself all over town - cocky, invincible, a good egg.  And everyone wanted to roll with me..wanted to hang with a smooth dude who was going places.  But now?  Here I am laying next to a wall, vulnerable, exposed, sunny-side-up, soon to be scrambled.  That's how it ends for me.  I'm incurable.  All the king's horses and all the king's men can't do anything for me.

That was written when I thought I had lupus.  Thankfully, the tests came back negative.  For a week or so, I honestly thought I was doomed.  Lupus is an awful disease that you can live with, but it also can be pernicious and attack your vital organs with fatal results.  When I thought I had the disease, I hated humanity -  I hated that everyone I passed on the street appeared to be healthy, that they would be on this earth long after I had succumbed.  I hated having my future taken from me.   And what's important to remember is that I would have given ANYTHING to have the types of problems I'm having today:  heartbreak, financial, work ennui, kid problems.   These are problems that can be overcome.  Health problems are another ball of wax.  So I will add to my list of things to do - give thanks every day for my health.  I will try and honor my body each day and nurture it with all the things it needs. 

You all know I’ve been a Weight Watcher for 5+ years.  I’m a superstar, having lost 125 pounds.   I’m working on at least 50 more.  Today I had lunch with my employee/dear friend, Dorothy.   She and I talked about Weight Watchers and weight loss specifically.  My other friend has been on a partial liquid diet, hoping to lose 100 pounds by next spring, and my other friend is doing a lemonade fast.  Wait, my other friend, who I just had a low cal dinner with on Monday, just described her weight loss program and my old personal trainer did a vegan cleanse thing. My aunt who was just in town does a bi-yearly cleanse to lose a bit of weight and feel better. Yesterday I lunched with my employee Mark and he described his successful weight regime program. My sister just joined Overeaters Anonymous and talks about being abstinent which I’m sure doesn’t mean she is totally abstinent from eating food or she’d be napping on the wrong side of the grass!  Is there anyone who is not struggling with body issues?  I just boggled my own mind as I ran down the list of my friends and realized this is an obsession! 

What does this mean!!!???– this preoccupation with body size? It certainly is worth noting that, almost without exception, EVERYONE I know is struggling with their weight and fixated on making improvements or lamenting their lack of success.   It is such a focus!  It’s THE focus these days.

Here’s a theory.   We all have eating disorders, every single one of us.   We have bought into cultural expectations and we don’t think we can be happy unless we conform.  I am convinced I would still be in a relationship with you-know-who if I had been 50 pounds thinner.   My friend Liza is sure if she can just take off the last 20 pounds (she has shed 30+ recently), her life will align and all her problems will dissolve.  My male friends are sure that, only if they slim down, will they find true love. It goes on and on and on and on.  We are unique individuals but it appears we all share an unloving attitude towards our bodies, our physical appearance – we never measure up, we don’t bear scrutiny. 

And I get the health reasons for being thinner – believe me.   I am living proof that losing weight enhances quality of life.  I no longer have acid reflux, I don’t snore, my joints don’t ache, I can exercise.   It’s wonderful to be getting right weighted.  But shouldn’t we do a better job with body acceptance and forgiveness?  I like a man with some excess weight – it makes me feel  smaller in his presence, but what I find is that those men who carry extra weight don’t return the favor – they think they are entitled to someone trim and fit.   It doesn’t make sense.

Years from now, I expect there will be analysis done on this time in history in America and maybe a conclusion drawn that there was mass neuroses around body image in the early 21^st century.   Historians may examine the phenomenon in context of what was happening in the world at the time and draw a conclusion that America was on the wane, that its citizens were confused, worried, felt neutered, victims of pop culture, lost their compass, lost their raison d’etre – and as a result they turned to the only thing they could control, their bodies.   Rome burned as Americans ran on their treadmills, elliptical trainers, measured their fat with calipers and held themselves and others to impossible body standards.   Fat became the only enemy you could conquer.  Control.

The challenge today is to think about bodies and what is healthy and what is neurotic.  If you are mentally and physically punishing yourself to be thinner, if you are putting your life on hold until you are fitter, if you have ended a relationship with someone because he or she wasn’t Abercrombie sexy, if eating gives you anxiety, if you are constantly guilt ridden and fixated, what the hell!   You’ve been brainwashed!   You’ve let someone else write an agenda for you!  So yes, I will continue to eat healthily and take daily exercise, but I’m not going to let ANYONE instill doubts in me about my beauty.   I love what I see when I look in the mirror -  I am gorgeous and sexy (ask Warren).  So when Joe says, “it’s not your face that needs work,” or James says, “you don’t have the legs for fishnets, or an ex boyfriend says insensitively, “When I  met you, I had second thoughts,” or when a friend who is thin complains she is fat when you are much heavier, I will say to them, "WTF!!!!  Get your priorities straight.   Look for the beauty, not the flaws, god damn it, and start caring about something that matters!!!"  Acceptance.


Peace,
Sarah