In the way that these things often do, something I read this week has kind of got stuck in the pipes inside my head, and usually that happens for a reason you know? I’m not talking about divine inspiration or at least I don’t think I am, I tend not to have a personal hotline to the The Big Guy. But sometimes I think it’s my subconscious mind’s way of giving me a poke on some yet-to-be-explored issue.
In the personal statement blurb at the top of a CV I was reading, I found the words relentless in pursuit of satisfaction. Which to be fair was a very strange thing to write on a CV. The rest of the words over the next couple of pages weren’t much cop either but once I’d pushed the thanks but no thanks button my head immediately fished that phrase out of the recycle bin and it’s been buzzing around between my ears ever since.
The concept of satisfaction fascinates me, especially when you link it to your aspirations and dreams. I’ll give you an example…I dream of being a size twelve, right? It’s the size that I loved when I got there last time, and I maintained it without too many problems for around a year. Granted, I only managed to maintain it because I wanted to continue getting in the pants of Mr Muscle and as a fat girl there would have been no chance, but I did a fairly good impression of being a gym bunny for a while and the size sort of suited me.
But even as a size twelve I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my body. I was in my early forties, and the natural southern migration of various appendages had already begun, speeded up to a degree by years of carrying additional baggage inside my skin. My shape was fine when everything was tucked into spanx, but without the assistance of tightly elasticated undercrackers it didn’t hold up too well.
Naked, it kind of looked like someone left the heating on a bit too high and I’d started to actually melt. So not quite the bikini body I’d been hoping for, you know? During the year that I existed in a pie-free zone, I spent a small fortune on lotions and potions all promising to tighten up this and rejuvenate that but in reality they made me smell nice and I spent a lot of time being slippery but that was the extent of it.
I spent an even bigger small fortune on new clothes in skinny-girl styles and then refused to wear them because my arms were too flabby or my knees were too wrinkly. I wasn’t satisfied. And you don’t need me to tell you that even all the way back then, although I didn’t realise it at the time, Vice-President in charge of dissatisfaction was my very own Asshole voice. I mean come on, who else could put a downward spin on being skinny?
I was reading an article a few weeks ago about a lady who’d lost a lot of weight but she had similar issues with loose skin and was just as unhappy as she’d been when she was fat. She was very wobbly and didn’t feel good about herself at all, and she came right out and said it…I wish I’d never lost the weight in the first place. Actually, that bit made me cry. That’s the sound of hopes and dreams dying right there.
I don’t think I’ll feel like that. I didn’t last time, despite my wobbly bits. Even though I went on to regain every pound I’d lost plus about another seventy on top, and the reality is that without clothes I’ll probably look like some kind of worm with arms and legs, when I cross the boundary of Skinny Town I will still be grateful that I got there at all.
I’m thinking carefully about what I’m going to get, so my head has time to get comfortable with the reality and I’m satisfied with what I end up with, you know? Wrinkly knees and bingo wings are a given. A midriff which doesn’t always move in sync with the rest of me is fairly likely depending on my forward momentum. And maybe a face like a deflated balloon…hell that’s even started in the chins department.
But for all that, my wrinkly knees will come without the red-hot poker which has lived inside my joints for the longest time. My midsection will no longer enter the room a good thirty seconds before the rest of me, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to reach whichever bit of body needs tucking into whichever bit of clothing.
I’m not aspiring to a bikini body, just a healthy one which will fit into normal clothes from non fat-girl shops whilst it’s busy being active and catching up on the life I want to live. That sounds pretty bloody satisfactory to me 🙂
