Changes

It's funny how some memories stick with you for forever.  Some of those memories seem so very clear, it's almost like having a movie projector in your head.

I have a teenage memory that stands out incredibly clear for me. It evokes potent emotions each time it comes up.  It is so vivid that when I call it up, I feel very much like I am there again.

I can see the green and black zebra striped wall paper. (Who puts wallpaper in a mobile home?)

I can see the molding strip that comes down ALMOST to the top of the mirror.  It stops about one inch away.  It was that way from the day my parents bought the place, and of all the flaws they found that they had the company fix, this one they missed.  So it stayed.  Yes the molding had the green and black zebra striped wall paper on it too.

I can see the counter top, littered with soaps and lotions and potions all designed to make a teenage girl feel like a socially acceptable person.

In case you were wondering, no.  There was no make up.  Even then, I had no interest in that.

I can see the rugs on the floor.  They were all shades of blue.  Nothing to match the green and black zebra stripes surrounding me.

I can see my image in the mirror.  I was about 16, in the in the first iteration of a relationship that would be on again off again for a couple of years.  I was studying myself, trying to see what he saw in me.

I was disheartened at what I saw.

I began crying, tears streaming non stop down my face.

"How could anyone ever love me if this is the way I look?"  That phrase floated through my brain in a loop.  Sometimes quietly.  Sometimes so very loudly.

I hadn't put my shirt on yet, and only had a bra on.   I remember feeling horrified at what I saw.

I could see my ribs.

All of them.  

It looked so vulgar to me.  So disgusting.  So horrifying.






Now I look in the mirror and feel the same horror and disgust.  I can't see one single rib, but the horrified feeling is the same.

I get ready to ride my bike and feel pretty darn good.  Somehow the bike clothes, despite the over abundance of spandex, make me feel like I am this incredible athlete.   Sometimes as I ride, I look at myself move.  I feel my strength.  I allow myself a moment to feel like I am this incredible athlete, strong enough to accomplish anything.  Except maybe that hill over there.  That hill scares me.  (One day I'll try it though). 

I get home, put the bike away, still rather high on that 'you did it - WOW " feeling.

Then I take off my superhero suit.

And walk by the mirror.

It all fades away with that one reflection. 



I am trying to make changes in my life that will make changes in me.


I'd be lying if I didn't say that I sometimes look back on that day when I was 16 and think - what I wouldn't give to see that image now.






Now for my number.


237.2

I have made it a personal policy to get on the scale once a week and take whatever number is there at face value.

Up or down.

But today I got on the scale and it said 237.2    Which shocked me.  

So I got off.

And got on again.

This time it said 240.2.

So I got off.

And got on again.

240.2

Two more times.  Same 240.2

I think the universe was trying to throw me a bone.  And then got upset when I threw it back.

But there's my number.

240.2