pt. II to the previous post, reflections a month laterI will never be a size 0 again.
What a freeing admission
Who is a size 0 anyway? I mean honestly lol.
"I haven’t been a 0 since I was like 4 years old," one of my friend’s exclaimed as I told her the news today.
Of how good it felt to clean out my closet and not feel bad at getting rid of clothes that no longer fit or hoping that I would someday fit into them again, they were a part of the past. I was no longer that size, nor did I desire to fit into some of those clothes again.
What? Why am I suddenly okay with this? Is this the same me talking?Something about that was freeing.:::
I’ve been really open about this recently because that’s the only way I can fight it.
A battle I have had to fight tooth and nail in the last several months, determined not to let the Enemy get a foothold and lie to me about my worth again.
It is crazy to see where I was with all of this a month ago. Probably the lowest point was the night before Chris and Aimee’s wedding. A situation and series of emotions I chronicled in the
previous post, where I was really afraid, after not finding dresses in my closet that fit or fit how they once did, and feeling utterly detestable and utterly fat.
I’ve been exposing this for all that it is. By talking about it and praying about it and processing it with God, I feel like He’s bringing me through the stages typically found in the grief process, which are typically present when we're experiencing a significant change in our lives other than things you would typically associate with grieving.
First there’s feelings of shock-surprise-denial- abandonment
Then anger
Then sadness
Then acceptance.
I have been in the first three phases since about December, when the first shocking realization came and I went to put on dress pants that were once loose, pants I wore about once a week in my old office job I quit in September, that were now… tight. I talked about this situation in the last post as well, but will never forget that feeling.
The last case of this was going shopping for a number of things, mostly a pair of shorts before leaving for Colorado, as there were no shorts in my closet that fit well and I had to face it sometime.
I called three of my close friends either at or shortly after a traumatizing experience at American Eagle.
I picked up a bunch of t-shirts… but didn’t really know what size would look good now. So I grabbed a bunch of sizes. Same with jeans. Same with shorts….
Umm maam, you can only take 8 items in… you know you have like 5 of the same thing, they’re all gonna fit about the same…
YEAH, unless you DON’T KNOW YOUR SIZE.
I felt so humiliated, I couldn’t believe her lol.
Poor girl. She didn’t know, she was just trying to save me the trouble. But it was so frustrating to seriously have no idea what size I was anymore.
Shopping was no longer fun.
I took it for granted that all these years I’ve been roughly the same two-three sizes. I took it for granted I knew what would fit. Now everything was a guessing game.
I could be this size in a shirt, but now this size in jeans. I could be an entirely new size in another pair of jeans. Or a completely different size in shorts.
I felt out of control. I realized what I felt in that moment was a growing loss of control.I had no control over my body or what was happening and it just about was going to kill me.
I realized talking with yesterday that my life has been one whirlwind of change the last couple months: NOTHING has remained the same…
Everything is changing, I realized. Even my body.
There are times when you just wish one thing in your life was familiar. Or constant. Or normal.
This season of change combined with experiencing these new feelings only made it more complicated.
I did what I normally do on shopping trips, but only this time it was way more time consuming.
I have to try on what I’m looking for in my top 5-6 stores and then make a decision. What once took maybe an hour, 1.5 hrs. tops now took 3 hours.
This is not gonna fly.
Discouraged I left the mall and headed to Old Navy and Macy’s. No luck.
I called another friend, no one carries my size anymore!
Knowing I have a flare for the dramatic, she laughed, which calmed me down, and then asked what was going on.
I love my friends.
I called another friend and was like, I just need to know what normal people wear!
I wanted to know what sizes she wore because she was someone I saw at thin but knew she wasn’t a size 0, so that meant if I’m no longer this size but something else, then I am not automatically fat.
So I called a bunch of friends who I felt were slim but we’ve never worn the same size, to see what “normal” people wore. Because up until now I have been abnormally small.
I liken it to not only do I look young, but I’ve always had the stature of a junior high girl in a 25-year-old body.
I’m still petite, but being able to wear the same clothes you fit into when you were 13 can’t be normal.
So I’m learning this is a healthy weight gain.
Which in actuality I don’t know when it really happened. Because of past struggles, I do not keep a scale in my house, nor have I weighed myself in at least 2 years. So when I did step on the scale to see if my assumptions were true, the reality was I was five pounds heavier.
Five pounds.
That is ridiculous. That is a healthy weight gain. Even I have to accept that. Five pounds in the last 12 years, come on child.
But it does matter.
It changes how we look and how we feel about ourselves.
So it is worth facing and acknowledging.
It’s weird, that day, I went back to American Eagle and bought a size I have never even tried on. Part of this is due to the fact that I buy most of my clothes except skinny jeans a size up because I have never liked really form fitting things, but still I was a little unsettled.
How does someone go from a 0 to this size in a year?! I exclaimed to several of my close friends that night, as I talked with both Kate and Angie on the phone on my way to So You Think You Can Dance?
And Angie told me she’d believe it when she saw it, as I would see her in a few days.
First words out of her mouth, you’re full of crap.
Thanks, Ang, I love you too.
Lol.
:::
But there’s been a lot of things that have led to this “acceptance.”
One thing I first want to speak of is
the power of speech.
Henri Nouwen says that our words can speak “life” or they can speak “death.” That words can unite or destroy.I told one of my guy friends recently that his words meant a lot because one time it slipped. For the third time in a row hanging out, I had picked a "healthy" place to eat instead of the usual choices, so this was enough to raise an eyebrow. Then it slipped, that I was just trying to make "healthier choices" and I admitted I was feeling self-conscious about my new weight. Not that I was going to starve myself or start exercising a ton, but that eating junk food all the time was probably a luxury I no longer had.
What weight? He said. He looked at me seriously puzzled as I fumbled for an explanation.
In order for you to have "put on" weight, one would have had to "have" weight. He countered. I kept trying to build my case.
And what I knew would happen, he gave me an honest answer. One of the things I appreciate about the guys in my life, they are way blunt and honest. If one of my guy friends noticed I had gained weight, they would have no problem saying it.
As I tried to prove it to him, he interrupted me and said he wasn’t going to hear another word.
He said something to me I will never forget, he said it in the purest, most brotherly of ways, he wasn’t hitting on me, he wasn’t making a move. It was the most loving thing, he took a risk and finally blurted out over my arguing...
"You’re a beautiful girl. I cannot wrap it around my mind for the LIFE of me, why the beautiful ones never know that they are..."
He admitted to me he could tell, but that it was a healthy weight gain, however small, you were too thin before, he said.
You’re still beautiful, was what I heard.
He had NO idea what my core fears were surrounding this, he had no idea the depth of brokenness this creating within me, he had no idea that ultimately it came down to that question on the heart of every women, whether voiced or not, yet again,
Do you think I’m beautiful?After that, I was fine.
I slowly began to accept the “new me.”
I found myself pushing myself to believe what he was saying was true, words that I felt were directly words that God had been trying to say all along.
After that, it was like a non-issue.
I’m still accepted. I remember thinking.
It sounds so superficial, but if you’ve lived this struggle, you know it’s all too real.
It touches on areas of our hearts we never allow to surface. Hits on questions we’re too afraid to ask.
I still find myself trying to accept the new person I see in the mirror, or not recognizing that person as I pass by a mirror, but slowly, this new me is gaining self-acceptance.
This line from the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" has been ringing in my mind, as I realized they were huge barriers, subconsciously that were blocking me from accepting the new me.
Before a photo shoot, they are trying to fit the main character in an outfit and she isn't the typical tiny model they're used to working with. The rack only has sizes two and four. She's a six.
Andy Sachs: So none of the girls here eat anything?
Nigel: Not since two became new four and zero became the new two.
Andy Sachs: Well, I'm a six...
Nigel: Which is the new fourteen.
I remember something within me sighed at relief that I fell within "the standard." But as I'm reconstructing lately, who said this standard was even right or healthy or the goal??
It has been a fight worth fighting and becoming my new ministry.
The more I share openly, the more I get to speak into the lives of other women actively in the same struggle.
The more I share without shame and face reality, the more others are able to name their fears as well. it is a strange thing and a ministry I never thought I’d have. But I love that it breaks down barriers between women, and allows us to relate face-to-face, women-to-women, as real people. With real struggles. Who are fighting not to place their identity in anything but our Lord Jesus Christ. A fight we will engage in the rest of our lives.
But a fight that brings the most glorious and inexpressible freedom.
Today, I feel I walked out of my prison cell.
I don’t know what came over me, but I got motivated to tackle the closest today and wash tons of loads of laundry and try to sell to Plato's Closet as well as give away a bunch of clothes to a bunch of the girls from church that I will never wear again. I love getting hand-me-downs and have benefited from several close friends and mentors giving me tons of clothes when they moved on, I remember always wondering how people had clothes that didn’t fit anymore. Mostly because I had never experienced it, since I hadn’t really grown. But today, there was a joy in being able to get rid of these clothes and bless someone else with them.
Something inside me felt so free.I had a stack of size 0 jeans, shorts, skirts, and was like, well, we’re not ever seeing those days again, I laughed to myself, but it was okay.
Actually, and strangely enough, it was great.
I like the new me, I found myself thinking. And I remember that day when I was faced with a choice, a choice of what determined whether I was loved or accepted, and a choice that ultimately I had to believe for myself, will I accept the new me or not. Will I accept who God has made me to be or not?
His grace has allowed me to accept that He is making me more “beautifully me” each day and this is a process of which I am not in control. It is stripping me away from the cultural standards of beauty I once felt “accepted” within and forcing me to know and believe my standard of beauty comes from the Lord.
The only One who has the authority to speak into my worth and value, for it has already been decided. Long before I came into being, He saw me and said you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Long before any human laid eyes on me, His voice was the one who said, “my delight is in her…” or “I will rejoice over her with singing…” or “how beautiful you are my darling, oh how beautiful…” long before I belonged to anyone, He claimed me and referred to me as the Beloved, and said boasted freely, “you are mine…”
Those are words that speak life.
Words of truth.
That point of to the truth of who we are and all that we are… His. Utterly and blamelessly His.
And words that illustrate we have
one God… not many. Not the gods we can create of how we look or how much we exercise or how much we weigh or whether or not we feel desirable or attractive to others, or what size we are… those gods will always disappoint, never satisfy.
He has provided a much better way.
Something more secure. More lasting and substantial.
A living hope.
And this hope as “an anchor for our souls.”
Praise God to who has provided to us a new way, a “living hope.”
One that will never perish, or spoil or fade.
But remain.
From NACR:
