Musings on Fat Clothes and Tits
I've lost 5.2 pounds. I'm impressed with myself - that's a lot of weight to lose in one week. We'll see how this goes. As I sit here at the computer, typing and staring at this screen, I am beginning to feel fat. Well, gee, despite the 5.2 loss, I am, after all, still fat. I told my sister today, maybe another five lbs and I can fit comfortably in my fat clothes again. Now there's a goal for you! And yet, I'll be very happy to fit into those fat clothes. When your fat clothes start getting too tight, you know you're in trouble.

And what is that anyway - this thing we women (or at least some of us) have with fat clothes? We keep fat clothes in our closets. We may diet (or, as some say, make lifestyle changes and begin to eat healthfully). We may lose pounds, inches, pants and dress sizes. Do we give away those clothes that no longer fit us, those clothes that hang from our bodies, limp and lifeless - the clothes, not the bodies - though those sometimes also hang limp and lifeless as well. Do we give those clothes away? Make space in our closets for skinny clothes, for healthfully fitting clothes? No. We put those fat clothes in a collection off to the side. We keep them hanging there...Just in case. How pessimistic, fatalistic. It's almost a guarantee - if you keep something in your closet long enough - you'll fit into it again. In some ways then, we are undermining our own selves, hanging onto the image of ourselves as fatsos. Maybe there's some perverse comfort in knowing those fat clothes are there. A guarantee that if we become depressed and overeat and underexercise ourselves back into our bounteous flesh, there will be clothes to wear -without the embarrassment of going shopping and without spending money - both activities that can cause deeper depression, more overeating, more underexercising.

I vow to discard my fat clothes! To break the tyranny of the fatalistic! Hahaha! (Did you know that the spellcheck wants to change that "hahaha!" to "Hawaii"? Not a bad idea. I should go to Hawaii.) But first I have to wait for my fat clothes to become fat clothes. Right now, they're almost normal clothes - as clothes which (almost) fit you comfortably are not fat clothes, but clothes that fit, right? They won't really be fat clothes again until they are too big for me and I can refer to them as those clothes that I used to wear when I was fat. Yeah, there's another goal - turning my current wardrobe into fat clothes or rather, into giveaways for the Good Will or Salvation Army.

Tits
I am worried about my tits. Currently, I am a C cup. Hah! I'm not really well-endowed. The only time I have cleavage in my life is when I'm either pregnant, nursing, or overweight. As a teen and a younger woman, I was an A cup. During pregnancy and when I was nursing my babies, I grew into a B cup. Weight gain increased my cup size to a C. So what happens when I lose the weight? Remember now, I'm almost 47 (happy birthday to me on the 23rd of this month) - so gravity comes into play here as well. I lose the weight, my tits shrink back down to an A cup - but, along with the downward trend age and gravity employ, I'll also have inches (oh dear, possibly feet) of extra skin. So...can you imagine? I'll have these little teeny, tiny tits, hanging near my knees, at the end of all that extra skin. I wonder where my nipples will end up? Perhaps I should save up for a tit tuck and nipple realignment. Oh well, better to be at a healthy weight with tits at my knees than overweight, with cleavage and heart disease, diabetes, etc. The trade offs you have to make in this life...

Butterflies, Pregnancy Dreams, and Transformation - Oh Duh!

Last summer, I had recurring dreams of pregnancy and butterflies. It sounds so horribly cliche and obvious now, but then, it wasn't.

I dreamt repeatedly, night after night, that I was pregnant. And though the feeling of pregnancy in the dream wasn't scary, worrisome, or unhappy, I would wake up, sit up in bed, feel my stomach, and sigh with relief that I was not, was not, was not pregnant - I was simply fat - the owner of a spare tire, a pot belly, and even that didn't come close to rivaling the extent of my stomach when I really was pregnant. In my waking life, the thought of being pregnant, at the age of 46, with a 19 year-old son, a 17-year-old daughter, and a husband from whom I had just recently separated - well, that thought was god-awful! Even if I was still happily married - pregnant? Now? HELP! I'm just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, see my life open up and have space for ME. To start over? I love babies, but I love other people's babies best.

And then I began dreaming about butterflies. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of butterflies, fluttering about in my room as I slept, following my car as I drove here and there (All in dreams, of course - I am not delusional, usually.). I wondered if I was having some sort of insect-type nightmare. Would the butterflies become adversaries? Would they attack me? Would they grow and become giant, woman-attacking butterflies? Deceptively beautiful and terribly dreadful?

I spoke with a friend about all this and she said, "Idiot! What are you panicking about - you're a writer, a storyteller - don't you see the OBVIOUS metaphor here? You're RE-INVENTING yourself, rebirthing yourself - you are pregnant with yourself in your dreams and the butterflies are your transformation." Oh duh.

I purchased a butterfly windchime and hung it on my front porch. Another friend needle-pointed butterflies on pillowcases for me. Sleeping with my head resting on those butterflies, I stopped dreaming of pregnancies and butterflies, woke up and went about my life. I rearranged the furniture in my house, put cut flowers in vases on the dining room table and the patio table. I took down from the walls some pictures my husband had painted for me when we were in love and caring for each, and put them away in the closet. I started buying organic milk and brown eggs. I played Neil Young on the stereo and danced by myself to Harvest Moon.

But have I been transformed? Have I given birth to a new me? I think now that those dreams were the labor pains that dilated my metaphorical cervix; I opened, slowly, slowly, wider, wider, almost without even knowing it, until the labor pains grew closer and closer together, longer in length, deeper in intensity. I believe I hit the transition phase this past fall: the separation from my husband became painful, hurtful, hopeless. I hated the way I looked and how I felt. I yearned for my old life, yet didn't want it really. I wanted something new, something different, something vital. And that aching and pain shifted, suddenly, just like transition in childbirth, I reached the worst part, despaired of ever making it through, and suddenly, there was a pop! And things shifted. I felt lighter, no longer worried, no longer clinging to what had been and what could not be now. I may have given birth to a new me, but I don't know who that woman is yet. She is a work in progress.