Thinking Wears Me Out.

Thinking about losing weight is exhausting.

I am sitting in my bedroom, listening to the plaintive hum of the air conditioner. I have barely moved an inch all day, except to take my son to the dentist and learn he has a small abscess in his tooth. This is, of course, a reflection on me and my parenting, so I take him to lunch at Arby's and buy him whatever he asks for while I mentally berate myself for not making him use the toothbrush timer. He is happy and delightfully weirded out that he has a dead tooth, not at all properly mortified like his mother. He keeps poking at it, like it will spring out of his face; a zombie tooth, out to eat your brain. I remember an article I read once about bacterial meningitis springing from an abscessed tooth; I fear for his life before I remember the article was more likely about a sinus infection. I eat loaded fries and convince myself it is okay because I am eating two sliders, something Americans invented so we could eat more than one sandwich and it will be okay. I know in my heart of hearts that loaded fries and two sliders for lunch- one roast beef jalapeno, one buffalo chicken- is not actually okay but I have eaten it and it is time to take Oliver back to school. I have visualized all morning about how the rest of the day will go; I am so capable and responsible in my mind. I imagine all the way to the school how I will pop open my laptop, and with all the direct, purposeful googling I can muster, I will find the answer to my terminal problem of being too fat to live.

I am, of course, not ACTUALLY too fat to live. I am what many fat-positive bloggers in the early 2000s, with whom I spent many a hopeful hour. devouring their words and hoping that "You are what you eat" would apply to reading as well, refer to as an in-betweenie. Not so huge as to cause a problem- I can ride roller coasters, and sit in booths, and have people tell me I'm not THAT fat- but, big enough to have to shop in Lane Bryant and have doctors sigh at my chart and tell me they want to have a *serious* discussion with me about my weight. I weigh 232 pounds today- I think, I haven't actually checked, and that number seems both like victory and defeat, as I have been both much bigger and much smaller in my 35 trips around the sun. Back when the internet was young, and blooming with new ideas, I thought I could live with this body, happily and without regret. Many bloggers wrote radically and passionately about size acceptance, and mindful eating, and not giving two flips about what people thought about your weight.

I supposed that is not entirely true, that I thought one way first, and then another. I really wanted to accept size-acceptance- for a season, for a time, for a few months, and then boredom or self-loathing would creep into my life, and then the same internet which brought such passionate ideas as fatshion and mindful eating was happy to show me Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and  South Beach Diet. The internet cared not about the nature of ideas, just the delivery of them, and I soon learned that whatever ye seek, ye shall find on the World Wide Web. So, I cycled round and round. I'm fat, I'm fine, I'm fat, I'm fine. A merry-go-round that never stops. I wanted desperately to be thin just as much as I wanted desperately to be fine with not being thin. With every iteration of desire, the contents of my fridge changed-a cornucopia of sugar-free pudding, fat free cheese, and regrets.

And, here I am again. I have been on this carosel of caring and not caring for the better part of a marriage, through pregnancy, grad school, through nearly nine years of teaching. I have learned that even though I graduated with a 4.0 from UVa Curry School with my Masters in Reading, and even though I have earned tenure and a modicum of respect in my school, and even though I seem to be a valuable, contributing, tax-paying member of society I still do not feel like it will ever be enough.

I, understandably, fear failure as I shop for the appropriate groceries for this next trip on the diet carousel. Not a diet; I tell myself. Diets are so 90s. Diets are what I did when I was a fat fourth grader, a chubby teen. Now that I am literal grown-ass woman, I say, I will make a lifestyle change. Lifestyle changes aren't eating fat free cottage cheese mixed with strawberry sugarfree jello for two weeks. Lifestyle changes are eating that exact concoction for the rest of your life and then waxing exuberantly about how much better you feel. You simply radiate with the energy of a person who has accepted that Snickers bars are not for you; nay, you make apple snickers SALAD, with half the fat and sugar, and now you are ready to live energetically forever. This is what I tell myself as I pick up matchstick carrots and angel hair slaw. I will feel better. Maybe I will feel like going for a walk. Maybe I will feel like knitting. Maybe I will feel like actually publishing this blog post and hope that people I know and love will not be upset that I typed the word ass on the internet. Maybe I will finish the ridiculously self-indulgent book I've been writing. Because I feel so good now that I'm sugar free and grain free... or maybe this time I'm fat free and gluten free... or it could be that I'm carb free. God who knows. Who knows what this turn of the carousel will bring.