I had dinner last night with all my colleagues at work – our boss is leaving next month and last night we met the lady who’s joining the business as his replacement. It was really nice to meet her in a social environment first, and one of the things our team is really good at is being sociable. I think it’s fair to say that we all enjoyed the evening, and both our new boss and our team passed muster on all fronts I think…we passed each others’ tests.

Do you know what I didn’t think about, until I was in the car on the way home? What I looked like. This time last year I would have been completely pre-occupied with that, you know? Before, during and after the event. What would she think about the way I looked and what assumptions would she make about me based on first impressions? Were all my chins going to be distracting with their ongoing momentum as we chatted, and was my menu choice going to be scrutinised as part of her assessment of me..? Ahhh…that’s why she’s such a tub of lard! Bad choice, fatty…

Of course she wouldn’t have thought that at all, in fact she was probably far too daunted at the prospect of walking into a restaurant to meet a tightly-knit team who are collectively devastated at the prospect of losing their much-loved leader to pay much heed to anything other than hoping we liked her, but as a seriously fat girl I somehow always managed to make it about me, like I was some kind of special being requiring separate consideration.

I was quite comfortable last night. I fitted on the chair, which in that restaurant in particular used to be a worry – visiting it in past times meant sitting gingerly on small round seats and to be honest back in the day I could’ve done with one whole chair under each bum cheek. We sat in a different spot last night, they’d reserved us a long table with a bench running the whole length. I fitted in, and I wasn’t squashed. No need to push the table away and eat at arms length to accommodate my bulk…I was comfortable.

And you know what, I felt nice. Relatively speaking of course, because I’ve got a long way to go yet but I was wearing new clothes, in a size 18 – that’s a 14 to my friends across the pond – which is where I was aiming to get to before my holiday. They weren’t straining at the seams either…they fitted me just fine.

The funny thing is, I didn’t even notice that I felt nice until I thought about it afterwards, because I was too busy being in the moment. And that’s huge. I can’t even tell you what it feels like not to be preoccupied, worried, obsessed even by the space I’m taking up in the world and what people might think about it, to the point where enjoyment and being present in any moment is eclipsed by the cripplingly dark shadow of self-consciousness. God, those were dark days.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses last night…faced with a menu stuffed full of fat-girl-wet-dream fodder, I’ve got to be honest, making skinny choices brought on a momentary strop in the Asshole corner of my mind. I didn’t choose the deep fried breaded cheese with onion marmalade, which made my mouth water before I’d even finished reading the description. I would have killed my granny for that appetiser, but the strop passed and what I had was lovely.

I got over myself. On a scale of  one to ten what I ate was a tiny bit naughty but nobody’s going to throw me in jail over it. It qualified as a treat without kicking the arse out of it. No guilt this morning, or feeling that I’ve gone off-piste…it’s all good.

Choose this, get this…I’m learning 🙂

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