weighty

At the dinosaur museum I played with childlike abandonment in sandboxes and hands-on displays. I wasn't in the proper insecure-adult-female frame of mind when I jumped on the scale without my defenses in place. Due to this, the numbers struck me like a back-handed slap to the face. My jaw dropped. When Dad's turn came, he pronounced the scale accurate. I groaned with disappointment:

I am heavier than I have ever been. I know that it is completely unfeminine to discuss one's weight. So sue me. I weigh 162 lbs. I once vowed never to weigh more than 155 lbs, the weight at which I began my college career. Even 150 makes me cringe when the little red needle on the scale swings that high.

My senior year in high school was a miserable experience by and large. One part of it was the insecurity I felt about my body. I had gained ten pounds the previous summer, and I was just generally awkward. Instead of wrestling my body into submission, I accepted my feelings of inferiority. Part of the reason was Joyce's clandestine bulimia. I couldn't be the victim in a war with my body.

I lost the weight naturally the first semester of my freshman year. The ten pounds faded gradually as I walked around campus daily and as poverty limited my consumption. I've maintained a fairly steady weight with brief fluctuations of up to five pounds as holidays come and go; my body perpetuates the status quo without too much difficulty. I have typically worked on my feet, walked about town and spent little on food.

But now the driving, studying and Cafe Rio of the past six months have added up. The sum: approximately fifteen pounds. I am appalled.

The weight gain is unprecedented, and so must the reaction be. Heaven help me, I will diet and exercise. I commit myself to it here in writing. I give myself to the end of the term, 50 days hence, to lose fifteen pounds. Wait, on second thought let's make it ten: I'm new at this. That comes out to a pound every five days. Is that doable? I don't even know. Physically, I am sure I can make it, if I can discover any shred of self-discipline among my limited virtues. But I am rather interested in the emotional toll. Cognitive dissonance is practically a guarantee. I have prided myself on my amity with my body (see blog entry "self") and now I must focus on disliking my current shape and appearance. I must grant attention to my failures and insecurities. I chose to limit my diet to 50 days for this reason, and I intend to approach the experience as a scientific observation. We'll see how it goes.

I'm just a little sad that the numbers written across my mirror are counting down in reference to a diet and not for something to which I am looking forward.