Monday, September 14, 2009

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

Then it’s awfully quiet over here.

I was futzing around on Facebook this weekend, looking at some of my friends’ pictures. There’s millions of them. Laughing and joking and cuddling and kissing and documenting their lives and adventures. It then occurred to me that I hardly have any with my husband after our wedding. Read: after I started putting the weight back on.

Going through our pics, we had a lot leading up to the wedding. I’d lost enough weight (not nearly enough, though) to be comfortable in front of a camera and we’d take pics all the time. My friends and I took pics. This is before I sort of lost my friends (at least the regular interaction) and before I trained my husband how to zoom in, crop, and review/delete every pic until I was satisfied it wasn’t awful.

And it’s not so much that I hate myself in the pics we’d take today – well, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t enjoy them much – but for some wacky reason I don’t want to know (or be reminded) of how others see me every day. I live in a fantasy world where the people I love don’t “see” me as fat. Or rather, significantly and morbidly obese. They don’t “see” my fat rolls, my multiple chins, or how my cheek flab makes my eyes look squinty when I smile now. But when I see the pics, that’s all *I* see so how can they not?

So…back to Facebook. I posted some pictures of our earlier days. And I love them. I really do. Even the ones I thought I’d hated back then, seem sooo much better than now. I covet that time. I looked and felt younger and happier and healthier. We’ve missed a few years of documented memories because of my vanity – which is ironic, really, “vanity” when you’re obese. It’s like so much stopped when I lost control of my body and my discipline.

I want our years to be filled with adventures and smiles and pictures. Life is too short. Soon we’ll be looking back on our lives and I won’t be able to recall how we’ve spent it. I don’t want that. I want to see where we’ve been, be it romantic or goofy or just as a record of our lives together. And I want to be able to look at those pictures with fondness…not contempt.

Every day I’m given a thousand little signs that TODAY should be the day I get my shit together. And each day I tell myself that TODAY will be the day. And each day I never quite succeed. Every moment I’m given, every choice I have, could help me down this path. Would if I could just take the little opportunities, and gain some traction, every day could be the day that I do this.

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