I feel like lately, I'm more or less trying to figure out who I am. What I have to offer the world. What difference I can make, if any. Is it on a small individual basis or on a larger scale? What do I want? What do I believe? How do I feel, really, when no one else is around? Where is my life going to end up? Am I leading it there or just letting it happen? Here's what I'm gonna do. Holland says lead with your faith, so I'm gonna say what I want. Want to know. Want to happen. Want to want.
I want to get married. I want someone to come home to. I want someone who helps and encourages me to be and do my best. I want someone to share and make memories with. I want Landon to have someone to call "daddy." I want more babies. I want to be able to be more of a mom and homemaker. But I also want to be a teacher, or a counselor, or a yoga instructor. I want to get fit and skinny. I want to go to the temple. I want to have a calling. I want a husband who can give our family the blessings of the priesthood at a moment's notice. I want someone I can discuss the gospel and our love for it with. I want to affect people. I want to be a more selfless and giving person. I want to be a better friend. I want to take cooking classes and psych classes and history classes and learn to sew better. I want to write more. Read more. Clean up my language. Be a better example. Eat healthier. Cook more. I want to save money. I want to buy a house. And decorate it. And make it mine. I want to be more honest. I want to be more driven. I want to sing in a choir again. I want to learn ASL. I want to simplify and declutter. I want to have a relationship with my Father in Heaven. I want to pray more. I want to be more active with Landon. I want to make stuff. I want to spend more time with my family. I want to stop feeling like I'm waiting for my life to start. Or waiting to be the person I want to be. Or waiting for things to get easier. Guess what? They won't. And you know what else? I can do hard things!
I'm grateful for Landon. For the pride I feel every day because of him. For the example he is to me. For the greatness inside him. For his health. For his dimples and fat knees and little buns. For his giant heart and sweet spirit. For the bond we share and the tender moments. For every time he calls me "mama" or "mommy". For the way he sings along to the songs I wrote for him. For every silent "I love you" in sign language in the rearview mirror or out the daycare window. For the look on his face when he gets something right or does well. For his love of people and eagerness to make new friends. For the way he looks when he's fast asleep. For the way it makes me feel to hear him speak of sacred things. For the divinity I know lives in him.
I'm grateful for enough money to get by. Mostly. For a home that's lit and comfortable. For full bellies and smiling faces and good health. For a care that mostly works. For a body that does as well as is expected but that is capable of so much more! For an education. For a job I love. For true friends. For media and entertainment. For passion and beautiful things. For men. For the knowledge of the Gospel. For snail mail. For my very own washer and dryer. For second chances. For seasons and nature and weather and holidays. For music. For words. For bubble baths. For medicines. For knowledge. For love. For family.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Loving A Larger Woman- By Bruce Guberman
So I'm reading this book right now by Jennifer Weiners called "Good In Bed". It's a New York Times' Bestseller, which isn't the reason I checked it out from the library, but a fun fact nonetheless. Basically, I got it because it's a story about transition. Observe: "...[twenty- eight year old, Cannie] charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become."
What I'm going to show you, (which will explain the title of this post), is the magazine article fictional Cannie's fictional ex boyfriend wrote about her that sent her on this journey of self discovery. It kind of goes with my last post's topic and I found it to be inspiring. So without further ado, bring on this week's plagiarizing! (I promise I'll start having thoughts of my own again soon.)
I'll never forget the day I found out my girlfriend weighed more than I did.
She was out on a bike ride, and I was home watching football, leafing through the magazines on her coffee table, when I found her Weight Watchers folder- a palm-sized folio with notations for what she'd eaten, and when, and what she planned to eat next, and whether she'd been drinking her eight glasses of water a day. There was her name. Her identification number. And her weight, which I am too much of a gentleman to reveal here. Suffice it to say that the number shocked me.
I knew that Cannie was a big girl. Certainly bigger than any of the women I'd seen on TV, bouncing in bathing suits or drifting, reedlike through sitcoms and medical dramas. Definitely bigger than any of the women I'd ever dated before. {*To which Cannie pipes in- "what, I thought scornfully. Both of them?*}
I never thought of myself as a chubby chaser. But when I met Cannie, I fell for her wit, her laugh, her sparkling eyes. Her body, I decided, was something I could learn to live with.
Her shoulders were as broad as mine, her hands were almost as big, and from her breasts to her belly, from her hips down to the slope of her thighs, she was all sweet curves and warm welcome. Holding her felt like a safe haven. It felt like coming home.
But being out with her didn't feel nearly as comfortable. Maybe it was the way I'd absorbed society's expectations, its dictates of what men are supposed to want and how women are supposed to appear. More likely, it was the way she had. Cannie was a dedicated foot soldier in the body wars. At five foot ten inches, with a linebacker's build and a weight that would have put her right at home on a pro football team's roster, Cannie couldn't make herself invisible.
But I know that if it were possible, if all the slouching and slumping and shapeless black jumpers could have erased her from the physical world, she would have gone in an instant. She took no pleasure from the very things I loved, from her size, her amplitude, her luscious, zaftig heft.
As many times as I told her she was beautiful, I know that she never believed me. As many times as I said it didn't matter, I knew that to her it did. I was just one voice, and the world's voice was louder. I could feel her shame like a palpable thing, walking beside us on the street, crouched down between us in a movie theater, coiled up and waiting for someone to say what to her was the dirtiest word in the world: FAT.
And I knew it wasn't paranoia. You hear, over and over, how fat is the last acceptable prejudice, that fat people are the only safe targets in our politically correct world. Date a queen-sized woman and you'll find out how true that is. You'll see the way people look at her, and look at you for being with her. You'll try to buy her lingerie for Valentine's Day and realize the sizes stop before she starts. Every time you go out to eat you'll watch her agonize, balancing what she wants against what she'll let herself have, what she'll let herself have against what she'll be seen eating in public.
And what she'll let herself say.
I remember when the Monica Lewinsky story broke and Cannie, a newspaper reporter, wrote a passionate defense of the White House intern who'd been betrayed by Linda Tripp in Washington, and betrayed even worse by her friends in Beverly Hills, who were busily selling their high- school memories of Monica to Inside Edition and People magazine. After her article was printed, Cannie got lots of hate mail, including one letter from a guy who began: "I can tell by what you wrote that you are overweight and that nobody loves you." And it was that letter- that word- that bothered her more than anything else anyone said. It seemed that if it were true- the "overweight" part- then the "nobody loves you" part would have to be true as well. As if being Lewinsky-esque was worse than being a betrayer, or even someone who was dumb. As if being fat were somehow a crime.
Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in this world, and maybe it's even an act of futility. Because, in loving Cannie, I knew I was loving someone who didn't believe that she herself was worthy of anyone's love.
And now that it's over I don't know where to direct my anger and my sorrow. At a world that made her feel the way she did about her body- no, herself- and whether she was desirable. At Cannie, for not being strong enough to overcome what the world told her. Or at myself, for not loving Cannie enough to make her believe in herself.
So there you have it folks, some good, hard perspective. Reading this again just now, it hit me even harder than the first time, I think. We have a responsibility to OURSELVES AND TO THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE US, to love us, too!! Like Kayla said last week, how unfair for someone else to have to convince us that we're worthy of love and affection and attention! This is the third thing in a week that has taught me that I need to love myself. And I'm thinking it was a message I was long overdue to receive. So tell yourself today. You're beautiful. You're worthy. You're lovable. You're unique. You're a daughter of the Divine and you DESERVE IT!
Now, go watch this and cry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWi5iXnguTU
What I'm going to show you, (which will explain the title of this post), is the magazine article fictional Cannie's fictional ex boyfriend wrote about her that sent her on this journey of self discovery. It kind of goes with my last post's topic and I found it to be inspiring. So without further ado, bring on this week's plagiarizing! (I promise I'll start having thoughts of my own again soon.)
I'll never forget the day I found out my girlfriend weighed more than I did.
She was out on a bike ride, and I was home watching football, leafing through the magazines on her coffee table, when I found her Weight Watchers folder- a palm-sized folio with notations for what she'd eaten, and when, and what she planned to eat next, and whether she'd been drinking her eight glasses of water a day. There was her name. Her identification number. And her weight, which I am too much of a gentleman to reveal here. Suffice it to say that the number shocked me.
I knew that Cannie was a big girl. Certainly bigger than any of the women I'd seen on TV, bouncing in bathing suits or drifting, reedlike through sitcoms and medical dramas. Definitely bigger than any of the women I'd ever dated before. {*To which Cannie pipes in- "what, I thought scornfully. Both of them?*}
I never thought of myself as a chubby chaser. But when I met Cannie, I fell for her wit, her laugh, her sparkling eyes. Her body, I decided, was something I could learn to live with.
Her shoulders were as broad as mine, her hands were almost as big, and from her breasts to her belly, from her hips down to the slope of her thighs, she was all sweet curves and warm welcome. Holding her felt like a safe haven. It felt like coming home.
But being out with her didn't feel nearly as comfortable. Maybe it was the way I'd absorbed society's expectations, its dictates of what men are supposed to want and how women are supposed to appear. More likely, it was the way she had. Cannie was a dedicated foot soldier in the body wars. At five foot ten inches, with a linebacker's build and a weight that would have put her right at home on a pro football team's roster, Cannie couldn't make herself invisible.
But I know that if it were possible, if all the slouching and slumping and shapeless black jumpers could have erased her from the physical world, she would have gone in an instant. She took no pleasure from the very things I loved, from her size, her amplitude, her luscious, zaftig heft.
As many times as I told her she was beautiful, I know that she never believed me. As many times as I said it didn't matter, I knew that to her it did. I was just one voice, and the world's voice was louder. I could feel her shame like a palpable thing, walking beside us on the street, crouched down between us in a movie theater, coiled up and waiting for someone to say what to her was the dirtiest word in the world: FAT.
And I knew it wasn't paranoia. You hear, over and over, how fat is the last acceptable prejudice, that fat people are the only safe targets in our politically correct world. Date a queen-sized woman and you'll find out how true that is. You'll see the way people look at her, and look at you for being with her. You'll try to buy her lingerie for Valentine's Day and realize the sizes stop before she starts. Every time you go out to eat you'll watch her agonize, balancing what she wants against what she'll let herself have, what she'll let herself have against what she'll be seen eating in public.
And what she'll let herself say.
I remember when the Monica Lewinsky story broke and Cannie, a newspaper reporter, wrote a passionate defense of the White House intern who'd been betrayed by Linda Tripp in Washington, and betrayed even worse by her friends in Beverly Hills, who were busily selling their high- school memories of Monica to Inside Edition and People magazine. After her article was printed, Cannie got lots of hate mail, including one letter from a guy who began: "I can tell by what you wrote that you are overweight and that nobody loves you." And it was that letter- that word- that bothered her more than anything else anyone said. It seemed that if it were true- the "overweight" part- then the "nobody loves you" part would have to be true as well. As if being Lewinsky-esque was worse than being a betrayer, or even someone who was dumb. As if being fat were somehow a crime.
Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in this world, and maybe it's even an act of futility. Because, in loving Cannie, I knew I was loving someone who didn't believe that she herself was worthy of anyone's love.
And now that it's over I don't know where to direct my anger and my sorrow. At a world that made her feel the way she did about her body- no, herself- and whether she was desirable. At Cannie, for not being strong enough to overcome what the world told her. Or at myself, for not loving Cannie enough to make her believe in herself.
So there you have it folks, some good, hard perspective. Reading this again just now, it hit me even harder than the first time, I think. We have a responsibility to OURSELVES AND TO THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE US, to love us, too!! Like Kayla said last week, how unfair for someone else to have to convince us that we're worthy of love and affection and attention! This is the third thing in a week that has taught me that I need to love myself. And I'm thinking it was a message I was long overdue to receive. So tell yourself today. You're beautiful. You're worthy. You're lovable. You're unique. You're a daughter of the Divine and you DESERVE IT!
Now, go watch this and cry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWi5iXnguTU
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