What does it mean?

I really don't expect anyone to understand this entry.  I don't really think that I do yet.  Infact, I know that I don't.  That is why I am going back to my roots here.  Going back to babbling on this blog until the thoughts sort themselves out and something of substance jumps off the screen.

In my previous blog, I talked about my self image.  That has come up quite a lot in the past few weeks and my honest answer is that I am not yet at peace with it.  I am not saying that I think that I am fat.  I am just saying that I am unaware of what I look like.  When I look down, I see the same thighs that I did a year ago, but a tad bit smaller.  I see the progress but I am pretty sure I am not giving myself the credit due.  I think that the cellulite and loose skin taints the image that I am looking down at.  I do not think that size 10 is the end of the road for me.  I have a bit of a ways to go so the thought of surgery or any "treatment" has not really been a thought.  I am hoping that by doing it right and doing it slowly, my junk will catch up with my trunk.

I need to stop and ask myself some important questions. The biggest one, what does it mean to be where I am currently.  What does it mean to be a size 10?

This is where the babbling is likely to start.  I am totally winging it.

I am sitting here trying to recall my earliest memories with my size.  I remember in camp when I was 16, I had a pair of jean shorts that were a size 14.  They were so tight when I had gotten them.  I could pull them up but barely zip them.  They were so uncomfortably tight that I know that I never once wore them out of the house. My prom dress was a size 16.  My mom ordered it from Catherine's, a mail order clothing store.  It was incredibly beautiful in the magazine but I remember at one point letting the fear of it not fitting overwhelm me to the the point that I didn't really care about how it looked any longer. I stopped looking at my dress as a gown and started looking at it as a burden.  The summer I graduated, I was 17, I drove my brother to Old Navy to go clothes shopping.  It was then that I realized that I was no longer fitting into normal store clothes.  I was so upset.  I bought a pair of board shorts that had a velcro closure.  I managed to convince myself that over a swimsuit, they did not have to close all the way.  It would look "cute".  On my 18th birthday, my brother bought me a Abrocrombie and Fitch Sweatshirt in a size medium.  I put it on a few times but never actually wore it for an afternoon.  It was too small.  It meant a lot that my brother spent that kind of money on me so I kept it all this time.  I wore it last weekend.  It was a tad bit big on me.

So what does it mean to be a size 10?  I have no idea.  I have no frame of reference.  I have no memory of grabbing a pair of size 10 pants and thinking I looked good.  The hardest part for me to understand is why I feel like a ghost in the mirror.  I see my face, I see my arms and my waist.  All of that I see and register.  I got it.  I've lost weight.  Wow!  Anywhere past that, my brain just does not translate what it sees.  I am pretty certain it is because I have only a handfull of photos that have ever been taken, kept of me in a full body shot next to something to compare myself against.  It is the oddest thing to feel like you are completely out of touch with your body part. I don't know what it looks like.  I don't know what it feels like.  I don't know what it should feel like. I am interested to see if I will know when I have reached my goal size.  That just the most unsettling feeling. 


A teaching point and learning experience is right in front of me.  I am confident that I will have that "ah ha" moment.  I have learned so much about myself and this is just a new something to unravel.