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Transformation Tuesday

In terms of years, this was a big one. I mean, it might be like:

Big Years

1) 1987 (because birth)

2) 2019

On the coolest of notes, I bought a place of my own. A true and actual home that is for me. And not only do I pay for it, but I take care of it, too! I now live alone for the first time ever and I’m a much better roommate than I had prepared for. I clean up after myself, I always refill the toilet paper, I turn off all the things to save electricity whenever possible, and I don’t cook fish like, ever. And I’m decent company to boot. These were refreshing realizations, and unexpected perks of buying a home.

Another thing that was going on in 2019 was I lost some weight. As of this writing, 78 pounds, to be more specific. And I’m going to actually be fairly specific for the rest of this, because I want to clear about why this qualifies as a major part of the Big Year.

The initiation of this process was rather nonchalant if I’m being honest. It happened the second week in January 2019, though unlike many other years before it, it was not born out of New Year’s resolution energy. It was honestly just a period of downtime in my life. One well-placed Weight Watchers ad on social media reminded me that I’d had some success in the past on it and since it was running a New Year’s special, what’d be the harm in using it for a month, drop a couple pounds, and scooch off the app when they made me start paying. It was a very low key “why not” vibe I was bringing to the table, which was different from the other times in earlier years that I’d begun something similar out of what felt like pure desperation to be something different than what I was.

I have kept up this very casual “why not” rouse for 50 weeks now, and it has resulted in my body mass index decreasing. I’m not saying this flippantly, like “oh this is no thing,” but let me digress first.

I’ve tried new stuff, like this thing called running. I got excited recently because I ran/walked a mile in under 11 minutes which I have not done since the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in 8th grade, but I told you I was going to be specific so I will not mince words when I say running *John Ralphio voice* STILL FUCKING SUCKS.

It is a monotonous soul suck of a cardiovascular activity and I literally only do it because it’s the quickest way for me to get my heart rate to an astronomical and likely unhealthy level and then be done with exercising for the day.

So yes, this all qualifies as a Big Thing during the Big Year but I don’t think it’s a Big Thing in the way it ostensibly seems. For me it qualifies as a Big Thing because I feel that I have worked hard at showing up for myself this year in a new way and I’ve impressed myself a lot with how consistent I’ve been able to be. I’ve also developed some cool habits that I think I can finally call habits since I’ve been doing them for 11.5 months? I have no intention of breaking these habits anytime soon and I feel like being resolute in this is also a Big Thing. I'm proud of myself for this consistency and this resolve the most.

It does not qualify as a Big Thing because I weigh less than I used to. And for this, I feel that a #transformationtuesday post feels exploitative, because it seems to put the emphasis where I don’t feel comfortable having the emphasis (but it got you here, didn’t it.) I’m totally cool with talking about the way I went about weighing less, but I’m probably going to get nerdy about how it’s a side effect of building these habits and is literally just science being like “ah fuck, she figured us out.” I also weigh less out of privilege, too. I have the financial means to buy fresh, healthy food on a regular basis and to pay for an app on my phone to help hold me accountable. I have the luxury of time outside of my job without a person or pet to care for, and can dedicate some hours of the week to these habits.

And it does not qualify as a Big Thing because I’m happier than I used to be, because I was very happy when I weighed more, too. I honestly just sweat less when I walk up a flight of stairs which has been a net positive for everyone really.

The thesis of this whole dang thing is: I am not a better person than I used to be now that my body mass has decreased. I think I’m okay overall, but I have things I can work on. But if I had been a shitty person who weighed more, I’d be a shitty person who weighs less, too. And I feel like this is the piece that gets twisted when the general public recognizes you have Lost Weight ™ -- there is no virtue in weighing less. You can be happy for people who have Lost Weight ™, sure. But first be sure it’s a choice and not a byproduct of a mental or physical health issue. And second be sure you’re not just happy because, even subconsciously, you think they are a better person than they used to be -- be happy for them that they have shown consistency and dedication to something they devoted some of their brain space to, just like you would if they went from doodling stick figure drawings to being the second coming of Bob Ross.

(Here I’d like to send special shoutouts to my friends who have navigated this really well and made me feel like they recognize how I’d like to talk about it, if I’d like to talk about it at all.)

It was a Big Year. I loved a lot of it. I liked myself in it. But I kind of always have.

A Case for Therapy

If it were to be featured in my memoir, the chapter would be called "The Great Transition." A lot of things were happening and they weren’t so small and they weren’t so gradual.

I was finishing the part of graduate school where I sat in rooms listening to lectures and was moving onto the whole “apply what you know” phase. I was looking out onto the next 6 months where I was going to be paid in smiles, criticisms, and Pass/Fail grading systems. And then I’d have the pleasure of being tested on it all. And holding on to a bold assumption I’d pass, I had job searching and student loan repayments to look forward to.

My relationship had just taken a turn I wasn’t expecting and I was left in the lurch. I moved in with my parents for a week during the One and Only Break, and at the same time solidified that no matter the status of my relationship in 3 months, life was such that I was going to be moving in with them full-time.

It was during this week I started seeing a therapist.

Before diving in to the point, I’d like to highlight how acutely aware I am of my privilege in all this. There are plenty of people with truer hardships, fewer opportunities, Greater Transitions. Those with impenetrable sadnesses, larger caverns in their psyche, and no resources to right it all. The support and the advantages I had through all the changing and upending is not lost on me. But I’ve learned in the last couple years that my story has value.

I started seeing a counselor through my school, which was easy to initiate and cheap (free). I don’t say this to boast, I say this because when I share with friends, one of the first questions is usually “how did you find someone?” and I don’t think this process should be as obscured and as difficult as the current healthcare system makes it to be. I benefited from my student status and the campus resources, but this luxury shouldn’t be limited to certain demographics; mental health needs do not discriminate.

When our schedules no longer matched, my counselor suggested someone new, who will be referred to as (my boy,) George going forward. I was hesitant after climbing up 4 flights to his office downtown. I wasn’t sure how long I’d stick with it.

George was nice enough during our initial “why are you here” session. He took some notes, asked some questions, and didn’t flinch when I cried (alternate memoir chapter title: The Great Flood of omgalltheTears.) I thought “eh, fine, I’ll come back.” Session 2 was good: more words, more tears, George offered some reframing but mostly let me talk. Session 3 is where George almost lost me by asking to dive into my childhood. “I know me some Freud when I sees it”, thought the Psych undergrad part of my brain as I turned up my nose to his psychodynamics. I had a great childhood, nothing to see here, move along.

And I did have a great childhood, but something I wasn’t able to see for myself until George pointed it out, was how I’d grown up the appeaser, the compromiser, the benefit-of-the-doubt giver. How doing this dance for so long had warped my sense of self, had diminished my own value, had made me fold into myself carrying the burden of worrying about others’ needs before my own. This was apparent in all my relationships: romantic, platonic, professional, familial. George didn’t ever give me this language; I came to it in my own way with my own understanding. But he did his due diligence getting me there by challenging my assumptions, questioning my long-held beliefs that This Is The Way It Is. And he was open to me challenging back. Sometimes he was off base. I’d have to tell him “no, I get why you’re suggesting that, but that’s just not me” or “I think you’re misunderstanding me.” And it was an important rapport. In a weird, meta way it helped me practice using the voice that I had been developing all that time.

I think about this now because I feel like Growing Up Female was the main factor in what some erroneously believe to be a biological predisposition to defer, to bend, to put the majority above ourselves. I think about this now because I still feel the pull to revert to some of these behaviors. And I do revert, at times, but I do so consciously and by choice. Women are all at once expected to be warm and soft and nurturing and demure and sexy and breakable and unbreakable and quiet and sensual and passive and loyal and strong and unseen and humble. And while we fucking are, we also fucking aren’t at the same time.

I saw George sometimes weekly, sometimes bi-weekly for 6 months. By the end of the year I was feeling a sense of strength and empowerment I hadn’t really known was in me and shared this with him. I said something to the effect of “I think I’m all set.” George nodded his head and said “I think you’re ready to move forward without me” …which worked out nicely because my insurance was changing in January and the new one didn’t cover Tuesdays with Georgie.

Not all ventures into dealing with mental health issues look the same. I tied this up in a bit of a bow because that’s ostensibly how it worked for me, but also it’s an easier way to end a piece of writing than by saying “I still have surpluses of self-confidence that are rapidly washed away by crushing waves of self-doubt on a regular basis, keep reading plz.” But at the intersection of a notable NBA player sharing his mental health story and International Women’s Day, this felt like the time to put this down and get this out. My hope is that stories lead to stories, and those stories help to normalize what ends up being a very human experience.

#international women's day #everyone is going through something #kevin love #mental health #mental health awareness

To My Dudes

The first time I realized I was visible to men I didn’t know, I was 13. I was walking down the streets of New York City with at least 7 family members. As I strolled ahead of the group, a man walked by me heading in the other direction and caught me off guard when he leaned in to within 4 inches of my left ear and whispered “beautiful.” The part I didn’t see was the kissing motion he made in my direction after passing by. You know who did see? My very observant and very vocal mother trailing behind me. “She is THIRTEEN!” she yelled at the man. “I’m sorry, she looks 20!” yelled the man who hadn’t realized he had a much larger audience as he scurried away.

I was at a Pizzeria Uno’s in a local mall with my dad on Christmas Eve because we were finishing (read: starting) his Christmas shopping and taking a lunch break. My dad went to the bathroom and suddenly the man who had been waiting on us was sliding into the booth at my table.

“Are you home from break?”

16 year old me didn’t speak his language and had never seen a waiter join his waitees at the table. “What? I live at home, yeah."

“Cool what year?”

“Um, I’m a junior.”

“Do you go near here?”

Me, finally catching on, “Yeah, the high school nearby.”

“Oh. I thought you were older, you look older…” the grown man trailed off while looking down at my chest. Perfectly timed was my father returning from the bathroom. Waiterman scrambled to stand up from the booth. “Hi sir, I was just chatting about school with her. Let me refill the waters.” Scatters.

Most recently I stood outside a bar with a male friend of mine trying to determine the cheapest ride share option for the moment. While intently shifting from one app to the next on my phone, a stranger man strolls up within a couple feet of me. As I’ve perfected at the ripe old age of 29, I kept a lookout from my peripheral vision. He stared me up and down…and up and down. He looked to my guy friend and said “that’s a whole lot of woman.” He then turned to me, “you’re a whole lot of woman.” “Sure” was my response, trying to will the Lyft there sooner with my mind. He remained there, gaze and all, just ogling. My guy friend was a bit bewildered, to the point of texting me 12+ hours later without context “Guys are weirdly bold with you. Like, it’s creepy.” I thanked him for his random realization and offered a 24 hour day-in-the-life tour. But these men are bold not just with me.

There’s the guys on the street, protected by the fleetingness of the moment they choose to exclaim their lewd musings:

The gentlemen going full Joey Tribbiani yelling “Hey mama, how YOU doin’” and literally whistling while I try not to trip as I juggle putting my wallet in my purse while carrying a coffee and grocery bags. I’m struggling with all of my gross motor skills at the moment, thanks, how are you kind sirs.

The “dammmn” with the matching head turn to watch the ass go by. Yep. That, sir, is a bottom. My bottom.

The calls to “keep shaking that thing girl” while simply walking at an average pace down the street, and not in fact dancing to Gloria Estefan’s “Conga.”

The oh-so-subtle whispers that “I’ve been watching you this whole time and can I just say MMMmmm.” The whole time? The WHOLE time?!

There’s been a grab here, a light slap there. There’s been messages on dating apps that start out detailing the size, the shape, or simply raising awareness of the existence of my body. “Them tits,” “those curves.” Two words as the greeting, the first impression made by a person I will never know.

I remember the first time I realized I was visible to men I didn’t know. I remember every time after, too. Countless times in countless contexts. So hyperaware of my body, how much space it takes up, how much it sways when I walk, how it is an entity that is apparently for the masses. Meant to be viewed, commented on, critiqued. And how I am seemingly defined only by that. The master’s degree on my dresser is unimportant, the promotion at work doesn't matter; my intelligence, my insight, my ability to shoot free throws like a sick ass boss are inconsequential. I am all boobs, butt, and hips and not much more.

I am very lucky to be surrounded by lots of strong, empowering women. I am very lucky to be surrounded by thoughtful, empowering men. I know that for the most part the women I know get it. They’ve experienced similar exchanges, felt similar discomforts, recognized they were visible to men they did not know. They’re keen on spotting the men kissing the air near their 13-year-old daughter. So keen they remember the date and location and that the moon was in its waning gibbous phase later that night. For the men, the good-hearted, well-meaning, wonderful men in my life, I still feel like so many of them don’t understand. And of course this is because it’s hard to understand things you don’t readily see. And these things I write about are assumed to be shrouded in alleys or dark corners or they’re one-offs that don’t form a pattern enough to elicit anything more than a “man, that was weird!”

But lots of these interactions actually aren’t shrouded at all; these good men are just not used to needing to look. They don’t see the whispers in the ear, the waiters in the booth, the fact that the man on the street after the bar was the 3rd guy that day to say something unprovoked and demeaning. They haven’t spent years relying on that peripheral vision to help dictate which car on the train to get on to avoid the guy leering at you. They haven’t needed to use storefront windows to indirectly watch the man following you too closely for too many blocks. They haven’t turned down the music in their ears to use what is essentially the built-in female Doppler radar to determine if that person you hear saying gross things from the bench over there is getting up and walking closer to you. Avoiding unwanted gazes, comments, and touching is a full-time unpaid internship at the shittiest anti-marketing firm out there.

For these good men, it’s a matter of continuing to listen. Continuing to trust. And continuing to be champions for the women in your life who share these stories with you. Luckily, the stories are louder, more frequent, and more resonant now than they have been before. Please do not become jaded. Please do not patronize. Please just offer your trust, your witness, and your voice.

#yesallwomen #yes all women #metoo

In week 115, we pay homage to what I must have looked like this Saturday from midnight to 12:46am in order for my Fitbit to register 46 minutes of "Sports."

#a knights tale #hump day #humpdayhoedown #heath ledger #shannyn sossamon #dancing gif #humpday