I have missed writing this past week. The State of Texas deemed last week as a testing week for students and as a result, there was no time for email much less blogging. I am back again though and I have to say that I am glad.
This post is one that is really hard to write. It needs to be written but it is hard to write because it is so personal. It is going to be at least two parts if not three parts.
I have always had an image problem. I have always been a large person even when I was little. I know this. As a younger person, I was active as much as any other child. I was outside more than I was inside. I ran, biked, climbed, etc. but I was still a large person. I know that growing up my parents tried hard to keep me eating healthy and not a lot of sweets. They didn't let me drink a lot of sodas and sugary things. As I got older, I knew I was not skinny like the other girls in my school. I knew that I was what people deemed "fat". I tried dieting from time to time. I tried all kinds of crazy diets.
I remember the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I decided that I was really fat so I managed to go several days without eating. I drank lots of water and juice so that no one would know and I almost pulled it off for 3 weeks but then at youth camp everyone got food poisoning except me and a couple of other kids. It was then that they discovered I wasn't eating and made me eat. Needless to say I contracted food poisoning as well because they made me eat the food everyone else had been eating. (In their defense, they didn't know until a couple of weeks later that it was food poisoning at the time.)
I hated high school (that's another blog) and having issues with how I looked just added to that. I was certain that I was the fattest person in school (I really wasn't but that was my perception). I went on to college and was paired with a wonderful, sweet girl who was absolutely beautiful. I was devastated. I felt like a large elephant compared to her and the other girls. I took a lot of my anger out on her indirectly. (Eventually, I went and apologized to her and we talked and today we are friends like I had hoped we would be). As time went on, my perception of myself got worse. I spiraled down. (Again, this will be another blog). My weight went up and down and I felt horrible. The first two years were hard for me because I couldn't seem to get away from this image problem.
My junior year things started changing a bit. I met two guys who became my best friends. We did everything together. They didn't seem to care that I wasn't a skinny person. They didn't care that I didn't wear the designer clothes. They liked me for who I was. I actually started thinking about things other than how I looked. I was actually enjoying college, life, and I felt like I was someone. I thought that I might actually be someone that guys would look at that think about dating and not as just a little sister. By the time my senior year started, I realized that I was just one of the guys. But things would change in a way I never imagined.
No comments:
Post a Comment