It is terribly romantic

Sunday morning begins as it usually does. It is the only time neither of us face obligations forcing us out of bed; our bodies only stir out of routine, waking whether we like it or not in the moments when, on any other morning, we would be pretending to ignore the alarm. I take heavy steps to the bathroom, the cat dutifully slinking after me, my own drowsy chaperone. He follows me again as I return to bed, thinking as I always do that maybe this time, for once, I will be able to actually fall back asleep. I won't; I never do. I don't really mind.

Lying awake but unwilling to betray ourselves to the impatient daylight, we blame the cat for our laziness; Eliot has just gotten comfortable on my abdomen and we'd hate to disturb him. He settles into me, his purrs more determined as I try to remove him, so I yield, but we both know he will stretch and yawn and find another suitable spot whenever we manage to budge him from this one.

Adam asks me to make coffee. I want it, too, but draw a kiss and a 'please' from him first. A little persuasion never hurts.

I make coffee and listen to the percolation and pops of steam from the kitchen. I move and start to think in this special kind of quiet. Adam's steps toward his desk are slumberous and shuffling, and as he sets himself before his computer, I bring him a filled, well-chosen mug.

Today, we write. I on the couch, Adam in the office - his feet, propped up over the edge of the desk, are sneaking into my peripheral view through the doorframe. The tick-tack-taps of his fingers on the keyboard are sometimes fluid, sometimes hestitant, always comforting. I drink my coffee and try to move my own fingers fast enough to keep up with my mind as it changes too quickly and too often. I am distracted, and Eliot seems to notice from his armchair perch; he picks his way to me and casually shifts his body to lie against the warmth of my computer. The light behind the curtains fails to convince me it's almost noon.

It is terribly romantic, two writers in love. We are no F. Scott and Zelda, no Ted and Sylvia, but neither were they - not at home, not to each other. Adam and Kait will never rival such myths: we are not, of course, of such a caliber, our passion is not born of turbulence or resentment, not of instability of either mind or character. The inspiration and criticism inherent in such tempestuous artistic partnerships is also inherently disastrous. By comparison, we are refreshingly dull; no Waste Land will come of us, though its author is our cat's namesake. We inspire the other and are inspired in return; our critiques are tactful and given only when solicited. I have learned not to read my partner's fiction until it is finally public and exists safely beyond our shared space; I too easily personalize and am prone to emotionally-fueled over-analysis. My partner knows it is better for us to read my writing only after I am physically removed from it, best when I am emotionally removed as well. We love our writing, but we remember to love each other.

So today, we write. We are always writing, and we are always loving each other. It is terribly romantic, and it is delightfully mundane. We will write, and we will live our lives. Tonight, we will eat dinner and happily waste time together being silly and stupid and enjoying each other until it is time for bed. Someone will still need to feed the cat, to scratch behind his ears and lure him into sleep. One of us - usually me - will still need to turn off the lights before climbing into bed with the other. I will tread the path so familiar, it's automatic: reaching out in the dark to find the wall, then following it to my side of the bed, trailing my hand along the cool plaster like a child absentmindedly trails a stick along a fence. We will fall asleep, easily or not, and prepare for tomorrow, for tomorrow is coming. Tomorrow, we write.

It's a Dangerous Business

Oh dear. Is it August already?

I'll spare you the usual laments about being so busy that time passes unnoticed and all too quickly, but I will say that I am a little exhausted and, obviously, shamefully remiss about posting anything here. I've been consumed by longish days of teaching (read: singing to/coaxing developing motor skills out of) tiny children and reassuring (read: easing fears and worries which I have no right to ease in) their parents, followed by intensive, 3-hours-a-night, 3-nights-a-week TESOL class. Sprinkled into the mix has been a quick trip to Long Beach and San Diego, a physically-exhausting but soul-satisfying day slinging cherries and peaches at a farmers' market, and some rarefied afternoons in the Seattle sun. There has been a wink at painting (2 whole paintings! 3 if you count a 2-canvas piece!) and a nod to the Olympics when my heart and hands are not otherwise distracted by what Adult-Kait deems "more important" things.

Admittedly, some distraction is acceptable - welcomed, even. Last November, in the inaugural post of this humble, stumbling blog, I wrote about transition and the fear that is transition's constant shadow. Distractions keep my head comfortably in the sand until I am ready to face the discomfort of Change - the Change happily building sandcastles and tearing down others in the lives surrounding mine, patiently waiting for me to meet its eye. Maybe by the time I'm in my seventies, when the hours I waste worrying now will have added up to regretful years, I will finally have learned to accept change gracefully, to relinquish doubt graciously; for now, I will continue to know the familiar fear of change when the distractions fade. For now, I'm shaking grains of distraction out of my hair because things are changing for everyone, and my nervous hands and restless sleeps are tell-tale signs Change is coming for me, too.

Killian and Daniel have moved temporarily to Portland this month before making the staggering, still-temporary-but-longer-term move to Oxford, England in September. Stacy and Jon just moved to Orange after transitioning through the Bay Area from Seattle last year. Friends are getting married left and right. Molly is having a baby (okay, I don't actually know her, but when she has her child, I'm praying she brings the little Orangette-blossom to my work in Ballard - it's her neighborhood, after all!). Lauren has taken the exhilarating step of quitting her job to write and blog full-time, giving herself a year as a trial period before reassessing her decision (again, I only know Lauren as an admired blogger and interwebs-friend, but I am thrilled to hold my breath with the rest of her blogstalkers as she takes such a thrilling plunge into what will surely be further success and continued brilliance). Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes are everywhere, and they aren't stopping anytime soon.

As for me? This week - tomorrow, actually - Adam and I will be certified in TESOL. Our names will be recommended for candidacy and we will receive our basic certificates within the month. Upon completion of the grammar-specific course in December, we'll earn the Advanced 100-Hour certification, but really, with the basic certificate already in hand, we could find a contract next week and move half a world away next month if we wanted to and start teaching. That's not happening, though, and yet - even thought I know we're not moving anywhere for a while yet - it's still a scary prospect, even if excitingly so.

What amplifies the fear is the unknown and our progress in spite of it. We don't know where teaching will take us just yet; we simply know we are continuing our forward motion anyway, into the dark, lighting our way with a torch fueled by the earnest cocktail of love of language and wanderlust. Should we be practicing "good morning" in Vietnamese? Are we slouching toward Bethlehem (I hope not)? We've been passively eyeing a few countries in South and Central America (our background in Spanish would be a linguistic comfort blanket), but we're excited about the possibilities of countries like Thailand and Cambodia in the Asian arena and Eastern European opportunities in Croatia and the Czech Republic, as well - again, we haven't even begun testing the waters, so we have very little idea where we want to dive in the deep end.

My home-loving Hobbit ways have always kept my dreams of adventure safely tucked in the folds of my brain's fiction section. After all, such dreams can never become nightmares when they are lived only vicariously through Jim Hawkins or Indiana Jones. I know adventure is out there, and I am feeling and fearing it now more than ever. To paraphrase Tolkein, it's a dangerous business, going out your door; you step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. But for all the dangerous business of Out There, I can't ignore the need to explore it, and I can't very well do that if I don't find the courage to leave Here. I reassure myself that the tiny shard of excitement I do feel buried somewhere in my chest will eventually work its way to the surface to splinter the fear and worry.

Transition will happen, and I will be ready. Until then, I will enjoy my time left in the sand - it is still warm there, but the weather is changing.

And Summer On My Mind

Summer is a time of watermelon juice dripping down your arms, off your elbows, and onto the grass. It is a time for cold beer in the warmth of the sun and the familiar balm of lazy evenings with friends. A time for outdoor music festivals, afternoons by the water, and a pervasive sense of ease in the city. A time that moves a little more slowly as the days stretch and the glow of sunlight lingers almost until bedtime. And, of course, it is a time of skin, skin everywhere.

Bikinis abound right now, with legs and torsos and shoulders out in force playing catch-up in Seattle's rediscovered sun. The pale bodies on display are, on the whole, lithe and lean. Typically, this means my tendency to compare myself to every other female in my vicinity kicks into overdrive, but this year, I've been (mostly) able to stay in the lower gears and actually be a little proud of my body. For some reason, I can accept what I've got, and what I've got is good.

Well, actually, for two reasons.

Katrina and Karena of Tone It Up

Karena and Katrina of Tone It Up popped up on my radar a few months ago when I was stumbling around on Youtube looking for... I'm not quite sure. Maybe motivation. Inspiration. Something different than what I had been doing, which was a hodgepodge of Jillian Michaels videos and a smattering of cardio, usually running, throughout the week. I had no concrete idea of what I wanted or where I was trying go with all of it - wanting to be fit, sure, but I didn't really know what "fit" looked like for me.

Now, Jillian Michaels is still my girl and she'll always have a special place in my heart. I fell in love with her years ago during college in Santa Barbara (land of the beaches and the accompanying babes), when Stacy, Barbara, Alex, and I would watch The Biggest Loser while stuffing ourselves with Freebirds nachos, ice cream and Indian food. We longed to have her body, her strength, to have her scream at our lazy asses, as surely she could scare us into fitness unlike anyone else. We enjoyed kickboxing classes through the university and we walked everywhere (and also at times I was unhealthily thin, at times unhealthily sedentary), but Jillian's drill-instructor-style verbal abuse was the kind of psychological beating that got me to push myself in my workouts. But after a few years of worship in the Church of Jillian, I gradually grew immune to her yelled dogma and my eye began to wander.

Thus, the Tone It Up girls. They are quite different from Jillian - incredibly feminine, endearingly silly, and all about having fun in fitness (and in life in general). I won't lie - I kind of hated them at first. They're gorgeous and seem to live on the beach in cute clothes and glorious hair. They're sweet and giggly and genuinely seem to enjoy doing what they do, and sometimes, on particularly crap days, it can be hard for me to handle their perpetual perkiness. Basically, they're perfect and I couldn't stand it, because I couldn't possibly ever be like them, and that's exactly what I wanted in full blown envy rage.

Katrina's hair is so beautiful it makes me stupid.

As I poured over their blog, I saw that they indeed hadn't always been so perfect, and that they had been a lot like me: slenderish and healthy enough, but not quite as "fit" in terms of muscle tone and overall lifestyle. I learned that what they do is achievable, and their food motto is smart and simple: "Lean, Clean, and Green," emphasizing lean proteins, foods as organic and as unprocessed as possible, and as many greens as you want - and as they say, a piece of fruit never hurt anyone. Most importantly, they still like their wine, cocktails, and chocolate, and they know it's okay to indulge sometimes (again, cold beer in the sun is just part of summer). Like I've written before, it's all about balance, and no one can, nor should, be perfect all the time - I'm certainly not. It's just common sense, elevated.

True to their name, toning is the major focus of their exercise approach; sure, you can be thin without muscle, but muscle strength and tone is what helps define a thin, healthy body. All of their videos (seriously, there are tons and tons on their YouTube channel) are rather short - no longer than 20ish minutes and sometimes as short as 8 or less. Cardio is, of course, an important part of fitness that they really emphasize, but their toning videos steal the spotlight. I love them - especially some from their first "Bikini Series," like the ab-focused Itty Bitty Bikini workout, the Beach Bum which kills my butt, and the all-over toners: the Bikini Strap and the Sandcastle Workout. They combine basic individual moves (like dead lifts with a row, or squats with side leg lifts) to make the circuits as effective and efficient as possible, and the girls' personalities are so engaging - they do the routines like sane, normal people with senses of humor, not tireless machines. They don't make it look deceptively easy all the time (push ups are hard), but because they're so laid-back - sometimes even goofy - when demonstrating the moves, it's easy to forget about the whole "work" part of working out. Again, I'm not usually one for flowers and rainbows and bunny giggles when it comes to exercise, but these girls are all inspiration without the intimidation, and it makes me want to be their friend and meet them for brunch on Sundays. Plus, their beachy sets and California style encourages the Santa Barbara blonde in me to resurface just a bit, and that's not so terrible a thing.

Karena, those shoulders. Katrina, those abs ...and that hair.

Anyway, long story short: I love these girls, and I owe them a lot. Because of them, I'm developing the abs, the legs, those cut shoulder muscles I've always wanted and the strength that comes with them. They've helped reinforce the message of loving your body, even if there are some days I can't always hear it. I still do Jillian videos sometimes, and thanks to Barbara's fantastic new blog, I'm getting exposure to new challenges, but Karena and Katrina at Tone It Up have won my girl-crushing heart. Now that the weather has finally caught up to the season we're in, I am happy to oblige in proper bikini-clad form: sunscreen on my white Seattle skin, watermelon in hand, cold beer in the fridge, and summer on my mind.

Capitol Hill Block Party, the warm-up for Bumbershoot right in my neighborhood.

Something Borrowed, Something Blogged

Our view of the fireworks on the Fourth.

In lieu of an update in the typical style of this blog, I've borrowed the idea of "Five Things Friday" from my only-through-the-interwebs friend Lauren over at Filing Jointly...Finally (I interviewed her, did a little write-up of the thing that was the result of two awkward girls Skyping, and she posted it on her very real, very awesome, actually popular blog, a blog that lots of people actually read - yikes - and thus, my first official guest post for someone Internet-famous.)

So.

Five Things Currently Happening in Kait's Apparently Uneventful Life:

1. A couple of weeks ago, I was hired to "teach"/wrangle/sing to* babies and their parents a handful of hours a week for slightly above minimum wage. Additionally, I spend many more unpaid hours at home memorizing songs and activities. I'm still figuring out how I feel about this, but luckily most of the kids are almost as cute as kittens or puppies. Almost.

2. After a second interview for another job opportunity and the requested submission of a writing sample a week and a half ago, I am still awaiting (read: agonizing over) contact regarding a decision. Especially agonizing is the fact that, at said second interview, it was mentioned that I should hear back, yea or nay, by the end of last week. I even did my due diligence by patiently watching week pass and sending a carefully-crafted follow-up email at the exact perfect hour and day. No response. I accept that I probably didn't score the position, but I would like - NEED - to know either way; I need to know I didn't imagine the interviews and that someone received and read my sample, and just one little emailed reply is all I crave. Is the midweek holiday interruption of work schedules to blame? Did I not scour my writing sample free of inappropriate words as I had thought? Am I ugly and worthless and failure personified (or, more accurately, does obsessing and lack of communication make me paranoid)?

(Yes.)

3. In the months I've been agonizing over my future and scheming and planning for all of it to be practically thrown over for a semi-related course of action with TESOL, I've let my savings dwindle past the point I swore I would never reach. I am horrified and have recently been finding myself paralyzed with said financial horror in the middle of the night (and the quiet mornings free of distraction) more and more. I know I'm still better off than a lot of the world's population, but I am so beyond uneasy with my situation, and it's increasingly difficult not to regret decisions that were - and still are - right long-term, but would have kept me quite financially comfortable for the last several months. It's just one more source of fuel for the anxiety fire.

4. I've fallen into a creativity hole, and am scraping its sides trying to climb out onto solid, inspired ground. To be fair to the hole, it's probably more of a ditch with sloping walls into which I've gradually wandered, but I didn't notice until the ground flattened with my artistic faculties.

5. On a good note: I am rocking the TESOL course. Classes began last Tuesday, and any apprehensions I had immediately dissipated. You guys, I am such a good nerd student. My note-taking is flawless and I'm already brimming with full-fledged ideas for lesson plans. We had an intensive grammar study over the weekend and have been reviewing this week, and while the  vast sea of grammar is riddled with eddies in the undertow and has several Bermuda-like triangles, I'm a language aficionado and love playing navigator. (The second TESOL course in the Fall is solely focused on grammar. I am so excited.) We definitely have a leg up on a lot of the material we're learning with our combined backgrounds in writing, editing, and education, but regardless, Adam and I will sail through this class.

And there you have it. Adam is as wonderful as ever, probably more so as he's the star witness to my crazies and therefore wins Best Friend for Life award daily, Eliot is a cuddly muffin, and I am trying to stay grateful for the many ways I am lucky, to stay positive in the face of certain negativity and uncertain whatevers. We did take a short trip to D.C. - my first time visiting the East Coast! - and it was a fun challenge to cram as much stuff and as many monuments/memorials/historic documents as possible into essentially less than 72 hours of actually being there. Once we've finished vetting photos, I'm sure a few will surface here. (And maybe the same will be done for Belize soon! Remember how I went to Belize in November and it was magical and I promised I'd write about it? Yeah. I'm sure that will still happen sometime.) Anyway, despite the Adult Problems, I'm pretty content, good things outweigh the not-so-good, and life is still happening - just one day at a time.

Le sigh.

*I've had to push through my fear of singing for an audience, but I've compartmentalized it a bit; singing songs about bubbles and ducks to the tune of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' for 15 people - most of whom don't have the developmental capability to understand/judge me anyway - is oddly less scary than singing acoustic covers of Bon Iver or Frightened Rabbit with my guitar in the apartment with Adam or anyone else present.

Some grand adventure

There are times I get excited about something and I act without thought of consequence. For example, I'll get a craving for oreos, and the initial fervor of excitement inevitably leads to despair:

Delirious with brilliant idea of Eating All the Oreos, I'll (1) run out of the apartment like a maniac to the corner store just barely making the time or effort to don publicly non-shaming pants, (2) nearly injure the sweet, soft-spoken, elderly Chinese Harry* of Harry's Fine Foods and Frozen Meats by blinding flinging money at his head like he's a first world problem, (3) tear open the package and wolf down half of it in a flurry of wafers and creme that would make the Cookie Monster blush, and finally, (4) bottom out from the sugar/adrenaline rush and hold myself in fetal position on the couch until the shame and stomachache subside.

This pattern holds throughout nearly every other area to which I've applied it: getting way too excited about a new workout and training so hard, so fast that I pull a muscle and never do it again. Boldly buying a shirt outside of my stylistic comfort zone, wearing it once with uncertainty, then letting it collect dust and mope with old pairs of jeans, forgotten in the back of the closet. The Adkins Diet (a terrible, traumatizing week during which I was denied my beloved fruit). I start strong and invigorated by the promise of - a smokin' body in 2 weeks? A new signature look? Ketosis? - and finish weak, if I even finish at all.

So many bright, shiny prospects leading to unsatisfying, if not downright dismal results. This has taught me patience. I am rarely impulsive; I weigh and measure and methodically examine my choices so that I can do everything in my power to prevent failure when I do make them. But I realized that no matter how much I plan and scheme, no matter how much I try not to let excitement get the best of me, sometimes my choices won't work out. I can't prepare for things beyond my control, and maybe I shouldn't let fear of failure extinguish the excitement. Maybe I should let my heart override my head when the choice is worth it, because the problem with so many exciting Beginnings is that they just weren't the right ones in the first place.

This time, I was impulsive. I was excited. And I still am.

On June 26, I will be starting my first course toward TESOL certification. I registered within 72 hours of discovering the program existed, and I'm still reeling from how quickly I moved to enroll. I chanced upon TESOL in a pivotal moment and something clicked. I didn't let myself get too excited at first, but it wasn't a frenzied, Oreo-score excitement; this was - is - a resonating, steady kind of slow-current excitement that tells me I'm doing the right thing.

So I'm excited. Anxious, a little nervous, and overwhelmed with day-to-day realities, but I'm excited for the right reasons. Plus I get to buy a new spiral-bound notebook, which makes me all giddy with first-day-of-school thrills. It'll be nice to have Adam to keep my head screwed on tight; after much discussion, he enrolled in the same program - apparently this excitement is contagious - and maybe this time next year, we'll be off on some grand adventure, like language-peddling Hobbits.

But for now, this course will be adventure enough.

I can't wait.

*While I can confirm that he is indeed sweet, soft-spoken, elderly, and Chinese, I cannot confirm that his name is in fact Harry. He owns (and lives in the apartment above) our corner store called "Harry's Fine Foods and Frozen Meats," so we just call him Harry and he is polite enough not to correct us if that isn't his actual name. And polite enough not to laugh when I'm buying Red Vines and ginger ale in my pajamas. 

Good night, and good luck.

I haven't been sleeping. More specifically, I haven't been sleeping between the hours of  2am and 5am, because this is the cracked, finger-smudged window of time in which my brain harnesses the darkness and negativity takes the reins. I've counted thousands of sheep, I've sipped a hundred cups of chamomile, I've drugged myself with Advil PM - but unfortunately, those standbys do little to calm an anxious mind. (My friends know well this insomnia - sometimes Killian and Stacy feel like old war buddies - and it's just something I accept as par for the course of unsettled twenty-somethings dealing with too many doubts about... well, being unsettled. As we go to bed, we just have to wish ourselves good night, and good luck.)

During the day, it's easier to take a brighter approach to my anxieties, to let a little light fall on my worries. Small problems cast small shadows. But at night, the light is gone. At night, the glass is always half empty.

"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning" - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was exacerbated yesterday when I learned the MAT program I was most excited about at UW is no longer offered thanks to a new departmental dean. The news was a little more devastating than it probably should have been, given the very preliminary stages of my planning, but it still felt like the rug was unceremoniously pulled from under already shaky legs. I've held many restless 3am vigils in bed agonizing over my future, and I know there will be more over the next several months (years, decades, etc.); last night was no exception.  Because soon I think I might actually be taking a step - maybe not in the direction I'd planned, but a step nonetheless.

I've always been interested in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), although it's something I've always compartmentalized in my head as a nice idea, but maybe not the actually actionable one for Career Kait. Remember ESL (English as a Second Language)? It's the small-minded ancestor of a field that has evolved and expanded into something really exciting at the international level, way beyond photo-flashcards for transplanted children in a tiny back room of a public school. And as it turns out, the community college a few blocks away from my apartment? It offers TESOL certification.

I spoke with the program coordinator yesterday, and with my B.A. in English and history of tutoring English from grade-school level to university level, she encouraged me to enroll. The course is 8 weeks this summer, followed by a grammar-specific course in the fall (for which I am perversely excited, because immersing myself in an environment of proper grammar is sexy, sexy, sexy). Once I can put that certification on my resume, I can do anything from teaching classes at English learning centers in the US to working as a language aide in schools, to teaching English in countries anywhere in the world. And if I want to continue toward getting my regular teaching certificate, the TESOL certification is just another advantage and gets me back in the classroom to start logging experience hours. Plus, the cost is significantly less, both money-wise and risk-wise, than other programs about which I feel less sure.

"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night" - Kahlil Gibran

I still don't really know what I'm doing, or if this is the right choice, or even a good one at all. I'm plagued by fear and am struggling to move forward while pulling the weight of the insecurities I'm constantly dragging behind me. Tonight, I will probably lie in bed at the appointed time and place, prodded awake by anxiety, paralyzed by doubt, inspired by the crowding sheep to run away to New Zealand to work on a farm where I won't have to worry about money or teaching certificates. Tonight, I will want to take the half-empty glass and smash it against the wall. But today, reason and rationality edge out the fear. Today, the glass is half full.

To try to love it

Any generic article on weight loss sings the praises of whole grains, lean proteins, leafy greens, and the standard-issue indulgences of dark chocolate and red wine (in proper portions and in moderation, of course). It preaches the usual health virtues: take a walk, take the stairs, get off the couch and to the gym. Keep track of what you eat. Get enough sleep, but don't sleep in. Drink water. Drink more water.

Most women (and plenty of men) I know could spout off these commandments as mindlessly as the alphabet, knowing as always that while they're easily said, the doing is just as easily interrupted by, you know, wanting to enjoy life - a life with whiskey, and lots and lots of cheese.

I try to do these things because, while they're not exactly fun, they're common sense. Who wouldn't want to look and feel like these girls? I'm lucky to live in a city where I can and do walk virtually everywhere. I enjoy running when I hit my stride, and like to participate in a handful of 5K events each year (never mind that many of the registration fees include a free beer from a beer garden at the finish line). I LOVE fruit - I can put away a pound of strawberries and twice the watermelon in 5 minutes, and don't even get me started on blueberries - and in keeping a predominantly vegetarian diet (the fancy term I suppose applies is 'flexitarian'), I do pretty well keeping healthy.

But then there's the Great Scale Debate. The rule used to be Weigh Yourself Once A Week: the same day, the same time, to the same degree of naked, and - let's be honest - preferably after you poop (WHAT, EVERYONE DOES IT, didn't your parents have you read that book?) Over the last few years, in the gradual, glorious shift of the general diet-culture focus from wanting to be skinny to wanting to be healthy, the rule has shifted as well. Sure, go ahead and continue to weigh yourself once a week to keep an eye on things if you must, but maybe try this instead: Don't Weigh Yourself. Pay attention to how you feel. How are your clothes fitting? How is your energy level? Instead of using an ever-fluctuating number to indicate your health, just Don't Weigh Yourself.

Ah. My stumbling block. I've fallen victim to scale-driven negativity time and time again, sometimes obsessively stepping on what I've un-affectionately deemed the 'fate plate' every single morning, getting a gambler's rush waiting for the flashing zeroes to show its hand while holding my breath and pointlessly sucking in my stomach. Even if I wake up feeling Okay, a number pops up higher than whatever arbitrary limit I've set and I let it ruin my day. I let some fickle digits determine my attitude toward food as the enemy, and even worse, I allow myself to rely on a crappy instrument to determine my self-worth, even though I know better. That is seriously pathetic, seriously unacceptable, and seriously effed-up.

So I gave Don't Weigh Yourself a chance. After roughly 3-4 months resisting/avoiding/hiding the scale - just listening to my body and guiding myself by the fit of my most unforgiving jeans - I weighed myself this week. I lost 10 pounds.

You've got to be freaking kidding me. I'm only 5 pounds above my self-defined 'ideal weight' at 5'3 (my healthiest during and after college) by the method of what feels like doing nothing? I'm still baffled and suspicious. I even waited a day and weighed myself again just to reassure myself that my scale wasn't broken. Turns out, what was broken was my body image. Stupidly, the months on my break from scale addiction up to that weird, exhilarating moment of tile-floored truth, I'd been feeling kind of heavy, crappy, and unattractive. I honestly still kind of do, maybe because I've simply gotten used to the feeling, accepting 'Not Gross' as my baseline judgment of decency in the mirror. My head is still screwed up, but for once I'm starting to believe myself when I think I'm looking and feeling fine.

I've been lucky to never have been significantly overweight - indeed, there have been times I've been underweight, usually when depression takes the reins and disordered eating happens (although I'm not sure I know what 'normal' eating is, come to think of it - it's different for everyone, but still, what does it even mean, 'normal' eating?). However, thanks largely in part to perfectionism, neuroticism, and a generous helping of ever-wavering self-esteem, I've definitely struggled with weight. It's not fair of me to put my own difficulties in the same category as those who battle more than the measly 15 pounds I'd gained in the last year or so, and under much more challenging circumstances - I have no children to raise, no culturally-encouraged dependency on fast food. But I still call mine a 'struggle' because I do struggle - I have constant company in the form of a thin, toned, kale-munching angel on one shoulder and a chubby, greasy-fingered, and many-chinned devil on the other. I struggle to make the right choices in the face of much tastier ones. I struggle with the fact that I'm not perfect, inside or out, and that it's okay, and no one else really cares - they're too busy worrying about their own problems to pay attention to my defects.

Nobody checking my ID is going to note or give a flying donkey if the weight listed on the license doesn't quite match the weight of the flesh-and-blood version; my favorite bartender at my neighborhood bar isn't going to refuse to serve me my beer and quinoa nuggets because I ate half a large pizza two nights earlier. I have to learn that it's okay to scarf down delicious kale chips and equally-delicious oreos in the same day without having a body-identity crisis. I'm ashamed to admit that I spend more time thinking about my weight and body than is productive or healthy. It is always, always a factor - even if I manage to ignore the shoulder-angel during a gluttonous, margarita-fueled Mexican buffet, she'll sneak back into my conscience an hour later as I realize how much I ate and am horrified for days.

I will probably always struggle a little - to accept and be grateful for my body and all it can do, to try to love it. Adam, my boyfriend of unfathomable patience and the endearing/frustrating audacity to love my flaws for 6 years (!) come August, tells me I'm beautiful and means it. He's an intelligent dude, and while not entirely objective in this case, he's unfailingly honest; I do my best - in love and sanity - to listen.

Food happens, and I'm going to enjoy it. And I'm going to get better about enjoying myself - off the scale.