I'm Finally Able to "Enjoy Life"

My mother loves to throw around a phrase that I always thought was cliché:

"You have to ENJOY LIFE!"

Up until recently, it evoked an eye roll from me, and Yessing her to death from Anthony. My mother has always possessed a positive attitude to the point of my personal annoyance (don't worry, she knows I feel this way...).

In the past, I used to provide my mother with a laundry list of excuses. I'm not where I want to be. I can't enjoy life, I have to work. I have more to accomplish before I can enjoy life. I'm not famous enough, not memorable enough, not financially successful enough... and just... not enough. But what I didn't realize at the time was the fact that when I was as uncomfortable in and as self-conscious as I was feeling about my body, I couldn't enjoy life.

It's difficult at best to exist in a world that wasn't built for your body. In other, less kind terms -- when you weigh over 300 pounds, it's upsetting to even try to enjoy life, or at least, it was for me. Before anyone comes for me, if you weigh over 300 pounds and you do, in fact, enjoy life -- great! I'm honestly happy for you because you are engaging in joy when I couldn't. I wish it didn't take weight loss for me to feel comfortable enjoying my life. But I can't look back. I can only look forward, and I know for myself that enjoying life has come naturally since losing 78 pounds.

Don't get me wrong. I tried. And anyone who knows me can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think I tried without much public complaint; my mother happens to know me better than I know myself sometimes and can pick up on when I'm not enjoying life. She didn't know that I was miserable because I actively told her. She figured that part out.

Enjoying life is difficult when you don't fit in theatre seats -- movie or live theatre. When you have to adjust your seatbelt while driving 15 times on a 15-minute drive, and the steering wheel kisses your stomach. When you arrive to an event only to find that parking spots close to the event's entrance are no longer available, and you know you'll be sore and sweating before you even reach the door -- and applying for a handicapped parking permit would be too humiliating (and yes, I'd tell anyone I love to get one if it is needed). When you need to pack sweat wipes and deodorant in your carry-on because by the time you're through airport security, you stink... and the horrors of needing a seatbelt extender are still ahead of you. When you don't do fitting rooms anymore and purchase all of your clothes online, and that's just fine with you because you dread the mall -- it's another place that leaves you sore and sweating. When you pressure yourself to dress perfectly all the time, because you don't want to be "giving fat and lazy" or "letting myself go" -- and you envy the girls who can take "no makeup selfies" (yeah, they're embracing their 'natural beauty' but you KNOW they wouldn't post that pic if they were fat). When you're following so many unwritten rules that have become so second-nature to you, you don't even know that you're following them anymore. You're just exhausted.

Not to mention... you're not just exhausted from following the unwritten rules. You're following the unwritten rules AND living with loud, unrelenting food noise at the same time! You can't stop thinking about food, even though you'd love to. You make food the reward for pushing yourself for trying to "enjoy life." You think eating IS enjoying life because it's the only enjoyment you have on some days. When you're through airport security, you make a beeline to the food court. When you end up at the mall against your will, you hunt down a Cinnabon or a soft pretzel like a moth to a flame. And when you're sore and sweating at events, you search for the food table like a dog hunting a bone. And as if all of that living in your brain isn't bad enough, no one believes you when you try to explain that you WANT to stop, but you...just... CAN'T. You want to exercise, but you... just... can't, because your body howls after five minutes of trying.

How is ANYONE supposed to "enjoy life" when all of that occurs in your brain every day? EVERY. DAY. How is ANYONE supposed to "enjoy life" when your body is dragging itself from one location to another, trying its hardest to not appear exhausted? OH, and up until very recently, society decided you aren't even supposed to talk about ANY of this! You're just fat and lazy, deal with it. Honestly (and I've been doing this blog thing for over a year now) I STILL feel strange and scared talking about these feelings.

In sum, I was:

1) Following the unwritten rules of fatness in society

2) Always afraid of not fitting in a chair, or in my car, or in a booth... and sometimes, living with that fear coming true

3) Feeling sore, sweaty, full of food and acid reflux, and mentally and physically tired all the time, as a result of living as an obese person

4) Dealing with relentless food noise

5) Afraid I would drop dead from a heart attack any day now

6) Hating the way I looked in pictures

7) Not supposed to be talking about any of it or "complaining" because it's my fault, after all

8) Dealing with people -- even people who love me -- not believing me on the super rare occasion that I did talk about it, and tried to explain that I couldn't stop

9) Wondering for myself why I couldn't just stop -- I have a superior work ethic in every other area of my life... how come I couldn't fix this?

10) STILL showing up for my husband, family, friends, work, church, theatre productions, and community.

Does that sound like "enjoying life" to you? Because now that I've put it out there, I see in black and white that I was not enjoying life at all.

Again, if your experience living as a fat person is not the same as mine was, I am so glad to hear that, and I will never invalidate your experience. If you were able to not give a flying you-know-what about body image and the unwritten rules of fatness or whether or not you'll fit in a chair, that is amazing. And I wish I could have done that; I would have been so much happier than I was. I even tried to pretend that I was that person. But I wasn't. And it took losing weight and a GLP-1 eliminating food noise for me to enjoy my life. The part of this realization that makes me the saddest is that while I'm talking all about it now, I felt as though I had to actively be losing weight for talking about it to be socially acceptable for me. That said, I'm glad I'm talking about it. I'm relieved, in fact. Talking about it is helping me to enjoy my life -- and hopefully, my talking about it will help others do the same.

Now that I don't have to worry about things like seatbelt extenders, sore knees and feet, being unable to exercise, the free t-shirt at events not fitting me (damn things usually go up to 2XL which is a whole separate ridiculous conversation), acid reflux, being obsessed with food, and a laundry list of other related worries, I am enjoying my life probably more than I ever have. I even enjoy food more than I used to, because food is joy rather than obsession or compulsion. Let me be perfectly clear here; society SHOULD change to help allow fat folks to enjoy their lives more. But while we wait and fight the good fight, I'm also allowed to make changes that help me to enjoy my life. Both things can be true at the same time.

For now, I'm going to head off to two events tonight (though this piece will post after those events). I'm wearing flip-flops because I'm not worried about how much my feet are going to hurt. I'm going to park wherever I want to park, because even though I went for a 1.3 mile run this morning followed by a one-mile walk, I'm not going to be sore, or overly sweaty, when I get to the entrance. When I see the food, I'll try it, but it won't be the focus. I'm not going to panic that I don't have any antacid with me because I won't need it. I'm going to take all of the pictures and not stand sideways in all of them (okay, maybe some, that old habit is dying hard). I'm still wearing shorts under my dress because Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm going to probably talk about food noise and weight loss because people in our community ask me about it regularly now -- which can get tiring, but it gets a conversation going and that's important. And I'm going to show up, like I always have. But I'm going to show up and enjoy my life.