However Do You Want Me? However Do You Need Me? (How) However Do You Want Me? However Do You Want Me To Be?

The lyrics to that Salt 'n Pepa song are running through my head today.

I called in sick to work today. I have a nose that won't stop running and while the rest of the world calls that a cold, I call it the after effects of eating nothing but pizza and cookies yesterday.

I'm laying on the couch, with a large bottle of water to cleanse myself out, and decided it's time to watch the Down The Rabbit Hole portion of the What the Bleep Do We Know series.

I've had the film since it first came out. I've never been able to get myself to watch it. Today, however, seems to be the day that I can wrap my head around the concepts in the movie.

They are talking about time travel, about cells being in two places at once, about chickens and eggs and observers and those being observed, and just when I'm just about ready to shut the whole damned thing off, this occurs to me:

They're talking about how our experience in this world is a reflection of memories and interactions with other people. How our physical body's main goal is to be safe, and that our brain learns to act accordingly to what our brain tells us will keep us that safest. Basically, that our physical body becomes a manifestation of our thoughts and beliefs, that we manifest our view of the world, whether it's safe or unsafe, based on our memories and what we've been told by others.

Safe. I thought about that stab of anger I felt at being called out by a younger male co-worker last week for not being thin. Then I recalled comments from women throughout my life about how, when they could see that I had lost some weight, that "you shouldn't go and get too skinny now." That I sincerely felt they felt threatened by the change in my physical appearance. Then, a time when my dad told me, after I had gotten down to about a size 8, that I was getting too skinny; but a few years and about 50 pounds prior, he said it was too bad I couldn't become anorexic for just a little while.

I thought about my sister being so happy that I had lost weight; and yet how mean she was to my other sister for being "more attractive" than she was. I thought about friends of parents who looked so happy when I took the weight off, and yet others who seemed completely uncomfortable with me in a new possible role of "attractive female."

All of these memories and interactions came flooding to me. What also came flooding to me is this feeling that people want me to be how they want me to be. That guy that made the comment about me being too heavy - well, he would prefer it if I were thin, I guess. His comment is jumping out at me, because in all honesty, his was the first comment where I ever felt that my decision to have my body look the way I have it looking seemed to be a personal affront to him. Kind of like, he wants me thin - why aren't I thin? In all honesty, I've never felt a true expectation from someone else for me to live within a healthy and attractive weight range. Which is probably why his comment hit me so hard; because it goes against EVERY bit of feedback I've ever gotten about how I should look in my life.

The fact that my weight seemed like a personal affront to him is what intrigued me. How can that be? How can one person's weight so personally offend another? It made me think about a conversation that I overheard my "I have to be thin to be loved" sister having with an equally "I am fit and healthy and that is how I present myself to the world" cousin at a family event. In our immdediate family, I am the fat one while everyone else maintains a healthy weight. Their family has a version of me as well; also the youngest girl - she has always been heavy while all the rest of the family stays fit and trim.

What I overheard my sister and cousin say is how much my fat cousin and I look alike. I laughed to myself when I heard this comment - we don't look alike. We only look alike to you becuase we are both carrying around extra weight. The comment was as absurd as seeing two black people and saying, oh, they look so much alike. No. All you're seeing is a common physical attribute. You are not really seeing ME; or HER, at all. You are just seeing fat. And, oh, I hear it in your voice - it just confounds you and makes you so sad!

So: which came first - was I really fat, or did they make me fat? I look at pictures of me when I am younger, and while there is some baby fat, I don't see a child with a weight problem. Which came first, their reactions, or my own mixed feelings about what happens to thin pretty girls? What's the reality: me being fat or me being thin? Maybe the question is not which is the reality - maybe the question is: which reality do I want to live in?

I've clearly chosen the fat reality. I sincerely feel that this is the reality in which i get the most love - I can talk and laugh and play with anyone, male or female, without any accusations of flirting, of wanting to break up someone else's happy relationship, of asking for it. In a fatter body, it has been my experience that I can just ... be. And be as close a version of what I think I am as possible. And to be safe.

But, what is that version of me? Today watching the movie, it occured to me that we create our realities around weight all the time: the mom who can't lose her baby fat finds her own inner fitness diva and becomes new Fit Mom. The guy who drowned himself in fast food suddenly decides it's time to take it off and becomes Healthy Self-Love Guy. We accept these changes all the time. So why is it that I haven't been able to accept the changes myself?

I had the realization the other day that I haven't been able to talk to my sister in a long time because I feel like she has expecations of how I should act and be that have nothing to do with how I really am. She saw me as being this rag doll of sorts, being manipulated and scolded to fit the desire that she had for a little sister. And I've always tried to comply - I've always felt like a camelion, adapting to my environment quickly and easily. However, I now realize taht I don't have any real concept of how I am as a person. Today I saw how much the weight played into this. And the question became: who is running my reality? Do I continue trying to guess the realities that other people feel comfortable with me at and trying to live those versions for them? Or do I figure out my own? What reality do I want for myself? Which version of me is the reality I want to live in?

Deep thoughts today. Thanks for listening. Until next time.