I love it when I have my page written before I leave work. Sometimes I even have it blocked and sketched by then too. Unfortunately, those days the comic is usually pretty sad.
So clearly the lack of progress is starting to get to me a little. Or maybe it’s not, but I feel like it should be? Either way, it’s been in the back of my mind lately. Shouldn’t I be wanting to lose more weight? Is it a cop-out, am I taking the easy way out, to say that I’m ok with where I am? I know I’ve improved my diet considerably, but couldn’t I stand to eat even healthier?
Or am I just really depressed today because I didn’t get any sleep last night, so everything’s making me cranky? Maybe everything will feel better in the morning.
***UPDATE***
Ok, it’s the next morning, and things do feel a little better. I caught up on sleep last night and I feel significantly less grumpy.
That said, I’m left wondering why my instinct is to be so hard on myself. The other day I was biking to work along the lakefront path here in Chicago, and I passed a jogger. She was probably around 60 (although I’m a terrible judge of age), and she was wearing a tank top and capri-length jogging pants, happily plodding along. Her arms weren’t incredibly toned, she wasn’t skinny, she was hardly a model, and the first thing I thought when I looked at her was how beautiful she was.
I look at myself and that’s absolutely the last thing I think.
Basically, I’m sitting there thinking, I have lost 15 pounds, and I have reliably kept it off. Sure, I’d like to lose some more, but shouldn’t that 15 pounds be a victory in itself? Why can’t I just enjoy my accomplishment? Why is my instinct STILL to beat myself up about this?
I could have written this this morning. Just once, I’d like to just -be-. I, too, was thinking, “oh man! I’ve lost 15 lbs. If only I could lose 15 more…” Can’t I just be OK with 15?
Ha!! Maybe there’s something in the air today! :D
At the meditation retreats I go to sometimes, the teacher talks about the habits of the mind creating paths that we are familiar with. The longer we’ve been traveling down these paths, the deeper they are. I like to think of my mental habits in terms of earth and water. Habits I’ve started recently barely leave a trace, like footprints on the sand, easily washed away. Habits I’ve had for decades are more like the Colorado River cutting through the Grand Canyon. It would take a really long time time reroute the Grand Canyon.
“Is it a cop-out, am I taking the easy way out, to say that I’m ok with where I am?”
Oh yeah. That’s so easy to do. Dead easy. Because we can all just turn off our smoke-monsters of despair and be happy despite social conditioning and psychology and misogyny to hate our bodies for not meeting a beauty standard that is neither fair nor humane.
Sure.
…
…
Wait? What?
Hahahah :D Fair enough, Kate, very true. It’s actually the much HARDER part, deciding that I’m ok as I am. It’s just my brain trying to beat me up again, telling me that it’s the easy way.
Nicole: that’s… I can’t decide if that makes me feel better or worse. :) It’s a great way of describing it, for sure. It makes it sound a little overwhelming though. I don’t know if I feel up to rerouting the Colorado River. :D