Monday, November 9, 2015

You Don’t Want To Be Skinny, You Want To Be Skinny In A Movie


I remember the first time I thought I was fat.

I was at a middle school Sunday school class. I was thirteen and up until that point, blissfully unaware that all of the other girls were skinnier than me. But it was summer and hot, so we were all wearing skirts and t-shirts to combat the non-air-conditioned basement youth room. I clearly remember bowing my head for prayer, and suddenly noticing that there was an obvious roll on my stomach as I sat on the couch. I stared at it through about half of the prayer, suddenly becoming grossed out by my own body. I spent the second half of the prayer sneaking looks at the other girls’ stomachs, seeing if my roll was bigger or smaller than theirs. When I got to the last girl, I took a sharp intake of breath. My roll was bigger than every other girl in the room.

I thought about this for weeks, wondering if it was okay that I was the “fattest” friend in my friend group. I went through my clothes and decided what I could layer to keep this information to myself, what I needed to get rid of because there was no hiding my stomach in that shirt or dress.

I can even remember going so far at the next sleepover as hugging a pillow to my stomach through the entire movie marathon with my friends because I didn’t want them to see my roll.

I’ve had moments and years where this pillow is my best friend. I’ve been thankful for certain friends not because of their friendship but because they are bigger than me and that boosts my confidence. I’ve had moments of being jealous of people I knew who were anorexic because in those worst moments, it seems like that word would fix all my problems (note: I am not nor ever was in no way shape or form anorexic nor will I ever be, just sharing a thought).

I was probably my most thin senior year of high school carrying into freshman year of college. But what’s funny about this is that these were also my worst and most depressed years of my life thus far.

I like to remind myself of this because sometimes I need to be slapped in the face with the fact that being 10, 20, 40 pounds lighter than I am right now will not automatically make me a happier person.

What will make me a happier person is loving myself.



I know, I know. I am the master of cliché. But hear (or read) me out.

If I love myself, that means I will feed myself things that are good for me, and I will also treat myself with splurges.

If I love myself, I will exercise an appropriate amount and work all of my muscles, not just run myself to death in the hopes of becoming skinny.

If I love myself, I will treat my body with kindness and find positivity in myself instead of focusing on what I may be hiding behind the pillow.

I read a quote one time by J. K. Rolling that said, “Is fat the worst thing a person can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me.” I printed this quote out when I first found it and taped it to my scale to remind myself of its truth every time I weighed myself. So what if I’m the biggest girl in my circle of friends? It’s also possible that I’m the nicest or the sweetest or the one with the most intoxicating laugh, and if I had my choice, I would rather be those things than skinny.

So yeah, I don’t want to be skinny, I want to be skinny in a movie. Because if I were in a movie and became skinny, I would think that also means I would gain the affection of every male in a 100 mile radius, I would gain instant best friendship with all the most popular girls, and I would find some kind of inner being and become a magical better person.

In real life, if I were skinny, I would be dating a man who was crazy about me, I would have 2 or 3 of the dearest and sweetest friends I could ever ask for, and I would be a child of God who loves herself.

Oh wait. That is real life. So what am I complaining about, again?

Right. I’m not skinny.

Meh. Who cares?



Thursday, October 1, 2015

The Bit Missing From 'Comet'

So I watched an incredibly trippy, hipster movie on The Netflix tonight called Comet. If you like hipster trippy movies, you should stop reading and go watch it right now because it's that good.

But there was a part missing from the movie.

Actually, if you watch the movie, one could argue that there was a lot missing from the movie, like a time line, or the concept of time at all, or an ending but whatever. What hipster trippy movie has an actual ending.

What bothered me was that there was this one interaction at the very beginning of the movie and it felt really significant in the moment and then it was never discussed again and that is the bit that is missing because there was more to that storyline, the writers just forgot.

I figured I'd help them out a little because they're probably too busy at writing their next trippy hipster movie, so I just wrote the bit myself.

Yeah.

So when you watch it, just come back to this post like a day or so after you watch it, when your mind has had time to calm down from exploding, and you can read the bit they left out.

Have fun.


“Del.”
He recognized the voice right away, but couldn’t figure out why he recognized the voice. He mentally went through all the people he knew in his head, which took about three seconds considering he really only knew Kimberly.
He wanted to figure it out before he turned around and saw who the voice belonged to.
“Doctor Del.”
He gave in and turned around at that. He couldn’t remember anyone, anyone, ever calling him doctor before.
Del blinked a few times, trying to place her face, but failing.
“Speak again.”
“Pardon?”
“Yes, like that, speak again. Speak more. I know your voice, but your face is weird. Not like weird, but I don’t recognize it. The voice I know.”
She laughed and it hit him. “Comet girl.”
“I guess I never told you my name did I.”
“I think I would call you Comet girl even if you did though.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She laughed again, and he felt like he needed to breath it in. He was so used to Kimberly’s laugh, which was either flirtatious because she wanted him or cruel because she was making fun of him. Sometimes both.
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here now.”
“What, here in New York?”
“I work at the hospital a few blocks away,” she said, pointing.
“The hospital?”
She smiled up at him and he felt like he needed to breathe that in too. “I’m a doctor. Of medicine. Practicing for three years now.”
“Practicing. Three years. My god, okay.”
“Surprised?”
“You’re just.” Del wondered if he should fight the urge to say the first thing that came into his brain at her question for about two seconds, then opened his mouth. “I didn’t think you’d actually make it. Plus you’re gorgeous now, cause let’s face it, you were a fat kid that one time with the comet in the graveyard, and now you’re really gorgeous and it must take a lot of effort to transition like that, so you wouldn’t do that for nothing, so it’s hard to believe you transitioned for medicine.”
“I didn’t, I transitioned for me.”
Del smiled, and breathed it in again.
“I transitioned for me, but I have you to thank for becoming a doctor.”
“Me?” Del turned his head sideways in confusion.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice getting softer and gentler through her smile. “You gave me your card that day, remember? Told me to give it to someone and anyone for a recommendation. I took that to mean you had faith in me. I still have the card actually.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out the card, wrinkled and torn and so faded you could barely see the writing anymore.
“I really doubted myself a lot at school. Not like other people doubted me, I mean I doubted myself. All the time. I had a bad habit of telling myself I was too dumb, too immature, too whatever. Or I’d miss like two questions on a test instead of getting perfect and feel like dropping out. And then I’d take out this card and remember that one time, you told a fat kid to become a doctor, and I’d stop crying and go for a run and tell myself I was smart. And that got me through medical school, and interviews, and patients, and life, kind of.”
Del stood completely still, not even wanting to breathe, trying to wrap his head around what was happening and what her words were and concentrate on the now and not the five minutes from now.
“I picked up the phone so many times to call you and talk to you and tell you stuff, but I always held back. I knew there could only be one time.”
“One time what?”
“One time to tell you thank you like this. One time to tell you that I’ve thought about that two minute encounter in the graveyard waiting to see a comet show nearly every day because of how much it meant to me that a brilliant doctor who has literally invented a cure for cancer took notice of a fat kid who knew some random medical term. One time to tell you that I owe all of the motivation for my hard work to you.”
She paused and looked at him straight and tilted her head just slightly, like she saw something that she wasn’t expecting, and he desperately wanted to ask her what it was, but was too afraid of the answer.
“You know,” she finally began again. “I’ve thought about this so much, about how this conversation or encounter would go down, and I always thought about it being about me. I always thought it was me getting stronger by saying thank you or me getting it off my chest finally or me me me. I never thought about it being about you. But I think now, I think looking at you, it needs to be about you. Could I be right?”
Del wanted to answer, but felt like he would choke if he tried.
“I am,” she continued, smiling just a little, in the corner of her mouth. “You know, sometimes I get these feelings. I don’t really know what to call them. My fiancĂ© calls it tripping beautifully, but that’s just because I weird him out in a good way and he loves me. But I have one now, one that says you’ve never been told how important you are before.”
Del wanted to look away, look at the ground or the tree across the street or the coffee shop down the road, but he willed himself to keep looking at her, to be in this moment because it could just be one of the Big Ones.
“Sure, you’ve saved hundred, thousands probably, of people’s lives with your work. But you don’t know their names. They’re faceless to you. I have a name and you can look at my face when I tell you that you matter because you mattered to me. You mattered, you mattered, you mattered, you mattered. And I’m so grateful that you mattered to me.”
“I don’t know your name,” Del confessed.
She continued to look at him, then slowly broke out in laughter, first a gentle laughter, then getting more robust, then laughing so hard she was doubled over. Del couldn’t help but join in it was so contagious.
“Welp, that just kind of ruined my whole greeting card speech, didn’t it,” she said after calming down, wiping the tears of laughter out of her eyes.
“No, no no no no no no,” Del said, getting more emphatic with each no. “Nothing could ruin or negate that beautiful speech.”
“Amy,” she said, sticking out her hand.
“Amy,” Del repeated, taking her hand sincerely in his. “Amy, it’s so wonderful to meet you again. Listen, you wanna get a coffee or something? I would love to hear about your life.”

Amy’s happiness seemed like it all overflowed in her smile. “I would love to tell you about it, Doctor Del.”

Saturday, July 18, 2015

You Don't Want To Have Friends, You Want To Have Friends In A Movie


I thought for a long time on this. 

I wanted to start this series with a bang, something that proves to myself that I can be brave when I write. 

And this is the most relevant thing going on in my current stage of life, so it seemed that I must start here. 

The problem came when I sat down to write and I couldn't figure out how to write on friendships without my words being full of things I didn't want. I started and stopped and started again writing this a number of times, but every time it wasn't what I wanted and wasn't without anger or bitterness. 

In frustration, I went to Pinterest in the hopes of calming down a little. I found myself going to one of my Boards called Clever Words. As I looked through all these words, I found so many that I had forgotten about and so many relevant to everything I am feeling these days because of friendships. So I present these words here. 

"Don't judge me because I sin differently than you."

I am different than you. And you are different than me. You might not understand my sins, and I might not understand yours. 

But heaven forbid we allow that to keep us from loving each other well. 

I want to be the kind of friend who will try to understand you, but even when I don't, still sit with you and hold your hand in your struggles. And I want you to be that kind of friend to me. 

We're all messed up, man. Can't we help each other, even when we don't understand each other? 

"Sometimes we expect more from others because we would be willing to do that much for them." 

I must confess something: I have often found myself letting friendships go or just backing away because I see that I am more invested or love the person better than I think they love me. 

I have this thing in me that makes me latch onto something and be crazy passionate about it to the extreme, or not care about something at all to the extreme. I don't deal very well in grays or middle ground; I am all or nothing. And so often I expect my friends to be like this as well. 

I don't do casual friendships very well. I want to be your best friend and I want you to call me all the time and ask me to hang out and I want you to be closer to me than any of your other friends. And when that doesn't happen, when I see that I consider you my best friend but you don't consider me yours, I don't know how to handle this. 

"Be willing to go alone sometimes. You don't need permission to grow. Not everyone who started with you will finish with you. And that's okay." 

I think when my dad retired from the military, I thought my friendships would be a lot different. I thought finally I would have friends and keep them for the rest of my life. I thought I would never have to say goodbye to another friend again. 

I am learning when it is okay to let a friend go and when it is okay to fight for a friendship and when it is okay to say I did everything I could and let them go because it's what they want. 

This is hard for me. And it means that sometimes I am lonely and grieving friendships. But this is a part of life sometimes, no matter how much it sucks. 

"Do no harm but take no shit." 

I want to tattoo this phrase to my hand so that I can remind myself of it every single day. 

I am a recovering pushover. 

Which means sometimes when I feel myself slipping back into the old patterns, when I start thinking things like, "Well, they're my friend, so I guess it's okay for them to treat me like this," or "Well, they're my friend so I guess it's okay to engage in this activity even though I know it's wrong for me," sometimes I lash out in anger as a self defense mechanism. 

I am still learning how to love people in such a way that when I say no, it is a loving sound and not an angry one. 

"I realize why you're not my cup of tea. I drink coffee." 

I am learning that it is okay to not like someone. It's okay to never get past casual acquaintance. Sometimes it's healthier and better that way. 

As long as I can do it in a way that is not hurtful. 

Because I have that addictive personality type, I tend to jump into friendships headfirst and go crazy about someone right away. And then sometimes I've learned shortly after that they're tea and not coffee, but I've already invested, so any breaking away is going to be hurtful. 

I am trying to learn to be patient with my friendships, to see if someone really should be in my inner circle. It's fine if they shouldn't be; it doesn't make them or me any less of a person. It just means we should smile at each other from a distance. 

"Forgive them even if they're not sorry." 

This is a big one for me right now. 

I am a talker. I get it from my mother. We don't do well with bottling up our emotions; we want to talk it out. 

I am learning that sometimes you don't get a reconciliation scene like in the movies. Sometimes you just have to go on with your life knowing you hurt someone or they hurt you and never talking to them again. 

I am currently in a scenario like this right now, and I would give anything to have an intervention of sorts and just talk things out with a few people, even if that involves yelling or crying. But I'm not going to get this, and that's hart for me to come to terms with. It leaves me with a lot of anger and bitterness inside that is hard to get rid of. 

Realizing that I'm not going to get this moment with this person and these people means that I will have to forgive them and move on on my own, I will have to forgive them without accepting an apology. 

God that is tough. 

But I know that it must be done in order for me to get through this anger and bitterness. 

"Not everyone has to like you. Not everyone has taste." 

This one cracked me up when I first read it. I thought about this phrase for a few days after I first read it. And I came to the conclusion that it is another one of those phrases I want to tattoo on my hand. 

Just because someone doesn't like me doesn't mean I'm not cool. 

Just because someone doesn't like me doesn't mean I'm not cool. 

Just because someone doesn't like doesn't mean I'm not cool. 

You know what, I am awesome. 

I have a stupid sense of humour and sometimes can say something that makes the entire room start laughing. 

I am generous with my love. 

I am beautiful. I may not look like a super model and I may eat too much Taco Bell and french fries, but my smile can make you smile. 

And if you don't like me, well, that's okay. I think you're an idiot because I'm awesome, but that's your choice. 

Let's be friends. 











Friday, June 19, 2015

The Start

I’ve been dealing with some Real Adult Problems in the past six months.

Moving out of my parent’s house (again), learning to remember to pay bills (and lessons learned through late fees), realizing that a bed time is something that both children and adults needs, roommates moving out unexpectedly and what it means to live alone, how to balance keeping a boyfriend in mind when making decisions but also keeping my independence, realizing my body no longer can eat $15 worth of Taco Bell at once like my 19 year old self had no problem doing, having to wear both an ankle brace and a knee brace when I exercise because I am falling apart a little bit.

Things like that.

Adulting is not what you think it will be when you are 16 and can’t wait to be on your own, and it’s certainly not what you think it will be when you are 22 and considering your soon-to-be life after college.

I have proved both of these facts very well (or very poorly, however you look at it).

I didn’t ever think when I was 16, let alone 22, that I would be dealing with breaking a lease with a roommate not once but twice, having to stay in a hotel room for several nights because of a disturbing situation with a stalker knowing where I lived, struggling with alcohol, dealing with something along the lines of a food dependency because I was lonely, or learning to be content and joyful about where God has allowed me to be career-wise.

This isn’t what the movies lead me to believe would happen.

One of my favourite lines of all time from any movie is Rosie O’Donnell’s sage wisdom to Meg Ryan in Sleepless In Seattle: “You don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie.”

I think this could be applied to everything in life, at least for me.

Writing / blogging things out has become a form of therapy for me, so I present to you my plans with my blog for the next little bit: A series. Over the next several blog entries / weeks, I will blog about different Adult Things I have learned / am learning, and how they are not what I expected or originally perceived.

I am calling this series, fittingly, You Don’t Want To _____, You Want To ______ In A Movie.

Here we go.