W18, Day 4: Homecoming

So the birthday thing has come and gone.  I've been eating badly since without any good reason other than I'm finding it challenging to stick with my daily points.  I guess I look in the mirror and I just see the fat.  I feel so heavy, especially around my waist.  You know, I feel older too.  Today I headed into my old city, Davis, for a little while on an errand.  We moved to Vacaville about ten months ago to buy a house.  At the time, I had a very hard time transitioning and adapting.  I'm embarrassed now to admit it, but the first afternoon in our new temporary apartment I climbed under the blankets and didn't want to come out because it was all so different.  What does this have to do with weight, you ask?  Well, I'm getting there.

So, fast forward ten months and I head into town for a bit.  Davis is a college town with the many young people that are part of college towns.  I couldn't help but noticing this afternoon just how young and lovely all the women (girls really) were.  Walking around in short shorts and summer dresses by the dozens, laughter in their eyes and hair shimmering in the sun, they were simply lovely.  Whereas I was wearing big clunky white tennis shoes (hey, it was for work today), and a matronly polo shirt with jeans.  Let's just say that I didn't look young and lovely.  That's normal because I'm not that age anymore, except that I realized, I never felt like these girls.  I was fat then, as now, and I always felt different, as if I didn't belong among them.  It's completely ridiculous to devalue myself--my goodness, intelligence, understanding, worth--all because I weighed more than them.  But I did that then and I still do it to myself now.  I remember when I was in college once referring to the girls in my P.E. class as "graceful gazelles" and I was the "tromping elephant" among them.  And I further want to note that this devaluing happened all on my own.  The young ladies in my classes didn't add to it in any way, it was all me.

Today I felt embarrassed, odd, and vaguely lost.  I realized that I have for years.  Today was the first time I'd understood that it truly was time for me to move on and find a place for myself that I could belong. It was almost a relief to leave the city that I had loved so dearly.  How can that be?  I lived there for eleven years and wept when we left.  Maybe it's really true that you can never go home again.  But one ending is also a chance for new beginnings.  Maybe I can begin to see myself differently in a new place.  I hope so.