Inbetweener

It might not be obvious - what with the lack of photos and everything (still not back in my own home - aiming for the end of the month) - but I have noticed a change in my body since working a in new, much more physical job. Little things start to annoy, like the fact that I can't get a pair of jeans to fit, or that most companies cut clothes way too small at the chest. That I fit into a 14 some places and can't get my backside into an 18 in others and am generally having a really, really hard time getting clothes I like which also fit well.

It's also given me a bit of angst about my body shape. When you're at a certain level - a certain shape, and everyone's is likely different - it's very, very easy to start thinking 'just a little bit more to come off and then...', and before you know it it's full on dieting, restricting, oh-I-can't-possibly-have-more-today-than-a-mug-of-black-coffee behaviour. Because I am aware of the changes in myself, I have experienced this more. And am more likely to fight it, and the "encouraging" comments about 'being less fat', although they still rattle around my subconscious doing who-knows-what damage.

We internalize the messages that we are not good enough. Whether this is propagated by the hysterical mass media, by health officials, by loved ones 'just worried' about us, or by the silent messages sent by a single piece of ill-fitting clothing or some idiot designer arbitrarily assigning hir "XL" sizing to a standard size 14. We read and assimilate these messages as us being not good enough.

And it's not true. I am good enough. Just because I have hips, and can't wear skinny jeans without them falling off me because there's no damn waist in the shape of these things, people! - does not mean that I am bad, wrong, evil. I'm just me. And I'm trying not to drown in the inbetween-ness of being not-quite-fat and definitely-not-skinny.