I Care But Also I Kind of Don’t

My face is filled-out, I’ve got some pooch going on, and some of my pants are a bit tight. I am currently about ten pounds heavier than I am at my most comfortable weight. About a month ago I thought to myself that I would work to trim down a bit before my trip next week to Copenhagen with Libby, followed by some time in Zurich.

I would certainly be more comfortable in my skin with fewer pounds, and I bet my hip pain would ease a bit too. But here’s the thing – my body works, I am relatively healthy, and most of all, I refuse to let myself feel really bad about how I look. I just won’t do it anymore.

So, I do as I always do. I try to avoid overeating, I don’t do fast food, and try to eat less ice cream (my Achilles heel), and at the end of the day remind myself that I have a functioning body to appreciate, rolls and all.

From this thinking about my body, which I was doing while commuting into work today and listening to a podcast who’s episode happened to be about body image, I fat-rolled into thinking about relationships. Romantic and otherwise, but first romantic.

Perhaps my attitude is general attempting-to-date fatigue, and I think that’s certainly true. It occurred to me though that it could also be fatigue brought on from an adult lifetime of feeling lots of guilt when past relationships didn’t work out, and now I’m just over feeling all those feelings.

If a relationship wasn’t working, I would stick around for longer than I should, assuming it was me; I’m too picky, I’m not patient enough, caring enough, accepting enough. Finally, I would accept that the relationship was a square peg in a round hole, and I’d end it. And I would feel devastated and riddled with guilt for far too long afterward.

Until suddenly it didn’t anymore. I am done feeling really bad about not wanting certain people in my life.

The same goes for certain friendships. I used to spend a lot of time being the Inviter. I’d call friends to make plans, and they wouldn’t get back to me or they’d take a while. They’d say they want to get together but have no follow-through. People are busy. I get that absolutely. And I know these friends appear to have a nice time with me when I do see them, so I don’t believe it to be a situation where they don’t want to spend time with me.

But I’m done being the one asking everyone else if they wanna come out and play.

So I stopped. And the hang-outs stopped. And I am perfectly fine with that. Because the thing is; the ones that wanna play, Do!  And the flakes blow away.

My point is, I’m going to let myself be fine with being a little chubby, and I’m going to not beat myself up for not caring about absolutely every person on the planet.  Elephants? Yes. People? Meh.