High School and Flames

A friend of mine from high school recently moved to Chicago, found me on facebook, and wants to reconnect. We are probably meeting sometime this week or next for a couple drinks.

Nothing like an old classmate to have you really look at your life and see where you are - career-wise, life-wise, body-wise.

He called me last Friday night to see when I'd like to go out. A little voice inside my head kept saying, "Sure! Go out with him tonight!" In fact, if I were thin and everything in my life were running great, I would have said that.

But the current me said, "That sounds good. Let me look at what I've got open next week."

Can I drop 100 pounds in one week? Let's see, if I fast again ... I could be down ... carry the two ... a max of eight pounds? I have to call him today and see if he'd like to meet up tomorrow night.

His innocent request to catch up is making me see how far from the self I'd like to be I am.

Facebook is another thing that is making me see myself for where I am. Current pics get posted ... and there I am in all my 227 pound glory. No hiding there.

I think I have been hiding. I think I've been hiding - in plain site, mind you, but hiding all the same - for the last decade. This came to light for me a couple days ago at work.

I work at a Home Depot. I'm a kitchen designer, and being a kitchen designer is one of the company's more highly paid store-level jobs. I admit - I make OK money. I'd like to make more, but when other people I work with are making eight to ten dollars an hour, I feel grateful that I am employed and making a decent salary. I just got my W-2, and this past year I made $43,000. Not too bad a sum.

However, I've been with the company almost ten years now. There was a time when I was a young hot-shot, respected by my peers. Now, I'm becoming a tragic joke. The younger kids rib me about being a lifer. No offense to Home Depot - but I didn't go to college to become a Lifer with Home Depot. I've looked at managerial positions in the company, and when I first started with them, I was on that track. I decided I didn't want to go that route - designers make a smidge less than the assistant managers do, but with way better hours and less headaches. I passed on the offer of advancement. Now that I would like to move up, it doesn't seem to be happening. It's a theme of a lot of things in my life - passing on offers that present themselves to me and then wondering later why I feel so stuck.

Why am I bringing this up? Because staying in my job at Home Depot is one of the ways I've been hiding. I've been hiding in this fat body, in this company, and in this non-relationship with Mike - all of these things, for the last ten years. The new decade has me spinning and reeling and realizing how long I have not been my true self.

Fact is, I don't think I know what my true self is. I think that is what I am going to be finding out in the decade to come. Am I a nice self, or could it be that I might be a bitch? Am I a pretty self, or could it be that I'm not all I think I could be? Am I a strong self, or a victimy, whiny little boy?

I am hoping to find out. No, actually. I'm not hoping to find out. I'm not particularly thrilled about moving out of my zone of safety. But I need to. The tide is turning that direction, I can feel it, and I am going to have to learn how to stand with rawness and vulnerability cloaking me instead of fat.

Here's the revelations that have lead me to that point:

Revelation 1:
At work, myself and a group of twenty-something guys who just graduated college and have not yet found "real" jobs yet, were in the break room at lunch. One of them says to me, out of the blue, "Ann, have you ever been proposed to?"

It sounds like a leading question. I ask what is spurring him asking me that. "I guess cuz you had mentioned once that you had been in a relationship for a long time. I was just wondering if it went towards marriage."

I said it did - that that guy proposed but I said no to him. That was about all the guys in the break room were interested in. But it got me thinking ...

I think the lesson I am to learn in this lifetime is independence. I was so independent back then. Somehow, over the last decade, so slowly that I have not seen it happening, I have become dependent on Mike. Just remembering turning down that proposal, just having the faith that I would find someone I truly loved, was such an act of independence.

I have lost a lot of that. I am a tragic lifer right now. Only, the life I have picked has been with Mike.

Revelation 2:
Mike. The other night, I wanted Mexican for dinner. I did not want to pay for this. I call Mike, also known to me as The Wallet. Mike says, OK, we'll go out to eat. He buys. I go home happy with a full tummy.

The fasting was a powerful experiment for me in that I learned that I would be ok with less food. Just an 89 cent gallon of distilled water and I can get through the day with no problems.

I don't have as much food that I even like anymore. I've still been on my meat phase, which I think I'm tiring of, too. It's clearly not food to me. It's ground dirt, ground soul that we add seasoning to and tell ourselves we need. It crams my intestines full and doesn't make me happy. I think it does, but it doesn't when it goes through.

Anyway, the only things I eat right now are: Dunkacinnos; Panera Brownies; Panera Blondies; Panera Creamy Tomato Soup with bread as my side; Taco Bell Chalupa Supreme; guacamole and chips from Uncle Julios; Vegetable Fajitas from Uncle Julios.

OH! I've not blogged in a while. Here's Revelation 3:
The other day I had off from work. I was really craving McDonald's. I went to McDonald's. I sat in the restaurant and ate. I realized what "craving McDonald's" means to me is going somewhere where there are all types of people treating themselves. McDonald's is a true melting pot of customers, and even though it's not a current slogan, it's still in my head - I DO deserve a break today! Then, the other day I was craving Taco Bell. It occured to me that "craving Taco Bell" means going somewhere where the cool party people go. Look at a Taco Bell drive through line at bar time - it's where all the cool party people are. I've been craving Panera of late; that's where all the low-key people typing on laptops go. I crave Starbucks when I want to hang with a snooty-er crowd. I go to Panera when I want to be with people like me.

The realation: I don't get interaction when I eat at these places. Yes, I am with a collective group of like-minded people. But we don't actually interact with each other. I think I am getting the satisfaction by eating it. But I leave full, but not emotionally satisfied. I just don't know it. So I come back again and again and again.

Looking to change that this year too.

Revelation 4:
The classmate reunion. This one is a big one.

I have never been safe. I thought my weight protected me. It hasn't. I have been hit on, gotten fed drinks, felt up passed out at parties, fed drinks, taken to bed. Fed drinks is the key for the guys where I grew up - it's like this agreement - the guys feed the girl drinks to get her drunk enough to sleep with him. And the girls drink the drinks. Or at least, I did.

It's why I don't drink anymore. I had a lot of guys, who I thought cared about me and respected me, just open up my shirt and lick on my boobs while I was passed out at a party. I can be mad at them, and I am. But the bigger responsibility falls on me.

My point is, I always thought that my weight has protected me from such things. It hasn't. I realized it is up to me to be diligent and to protect myself.

That's all for today. Thanks for listening. Until next time.