You’re welcome to come join.

I’m overweight. I know that. It’s in my head and I know that I don’t look my best. Most of the time, though, I just think I don’t look great.

Today, though… I tried to find something to wear for school. I’ve lost 13 pounds since Christmas. But all my clothes feel too small. (Whether they are or not.) I have this one suit that I bought at the resale shop because it was plenty big. I don’t like to admit this. It’s a size 16. But it is too big. So I can wear clothes that feel too small or clothes that feel too big.

I opted for too big. Though I did cut the buttons off and I’m going to sew them on so that the jacket fits tighter. Before this I could have worn a flak jacket under there and no one would have known the difference. It will still be too big, but at least it will look better.

So I have too big and too small but nothing just right. And they’re my clothes, not someone else’s, so you’d think they’d fit.

Anyway, I’m feeling big, fat, and ugly. Not a pleasant feeling, or a common one most days. My husband’s compliments over the years probably have something to do with that. It doesn’t help that I’m losing weight. It doesn’t help that I’m eating right. It doesn’t help that I’m running. I feel gross– in all meanings of the word.

I’m out running around and two ladies walk by. One in a black suit and one in a brown suit. They’re wearing their size six shoes in sexy boots and their jackets nip in at the waist and flare out at the hip and they look like fashion twins or mirror images. The one wearing brown has black hair and vice versa. Their clothes are probably size 4s.

And I’ve never worn a size 4 in my life. The smallest I’ve ever gotten, and I do know this has something to do with the large endowment I’ve got which was discussed in the last personal post, is an 8. I wore an 8 in high school. I wore an 8 in junior high. I wore an 8 when I got married. I wore an 8 before my first child. I haven’t worn a size 8 since then.

Now you’d think I would know that I’m huge. I mean, the “cute” stores don’t carry anything over a 10 and some carry nothing over an 8. Only the “regular” stores, big department stores, carry 12, 14, 16…

But I usually don’t think of myself as huge. I know my stomach’s not flat, but neither is my size 4 sister’s. I know my arms are flabby.

But I usually think, “Okay, I’ve got a little fixing up to do.”

Today, though. Today I am thinking I’m a tub of lard. A giant jello jiggler. The Pillsbury Doughboy’s tanned sister. I don’t like any of my clothes and I think they all look bad on me.

I’ve been skinnier, you know. But even when I’d been on Body for Life for 11 months and had biked and lifted weights six times a week for almost a year, I still weighed 159 and I wore a size 10 or a 12. I know it’s not a size 32 or anything, but it’s still bigger than the “average” woman.

So I feel huge. I must look huge to other people. And I haven’t seen it most of the time. Today, though, I feel it. I see it. And it grosses me out.

My mom is morbidly obese. (See, I can say it about her.) She weighs at least 100 pounds too much. At one point this last year she was more than double the weight she should be. More than double my weight. She has lost 60 pounds since then, but she’s still 100+ overweight.

I don’t want to look like that. I don’t want to be like that. But today I feel like I am.

Gotta get over that.

I’d like to wear a size 4, like my 5’10” sister. (When she’s not pregnant.) Right now I weigh less than she does. But that’s because I’ve lost weight and she’s six months pregnant, as my usually thoughtful husband reminded me when I remarked on it. But she can wear a size 4. I’ve never worn a size 4 in my life. At least not since I was 12 or younger. And who cared then? I remember the teacher was appalled when I was 11 that I weighed 110 pounds. But I was 5’6″. That’s light for someone that tall. Of course, most 11 year old girls, and boys, aren’t that tall or that heavy.

I’ve always been the “fat” sister. I wasn’t fat then, but my baby sisters thought I was. I don’t know why. Maybe the gargantuan breasts. My husband says I’m not the fat sister now. That “honor” has fallen to my middle sister, the “married” one. Though I’ve been married 3x as long as she has. But I’ve only been married once and she started earlier than I did. I don’t want to be the fat sister.

I don’t want to be fat, period.

Usually when you get upset like this, if you are addicted to food, you go get something to eat. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to sit here and jump around and fidget (because skinny people fidget and people who fidget don’t gain weight) and I’m going to make a renewed commitment to getting my weight down as low as it will go, even if that’s not as low as I would like it, and getting in better shape and staying there.

I told my husband I wanted him to start taking pictures of me next January. He asked what was up with the timing on that. I told him that I have stuck to programs for as much as a year, but after that, when I wasn’t where I wanted to be, I’ve given up. So this year I am sticking to the program of eating better and jogging/running (I hope to advance to actual running in March.) and next year, to keep me one the wagon, he can take my pictures…

Okay, I’ve got to go sew buttons on my over-large suit so I can wear it to school.

Misery doesn’t really love company. But maybe if you came to this party, you will go away heartened that YOU weren’t me.