Today feels like a blue day, kind of like a Monday. Oh well. I guess Thursday can feel blue too. It's rainy and gloomy outside and I feel the same way inside.
When I was younger, I used to get depressed in the spring. Everyone else was looking forward to summer fun in the sun. I always felt like an outsider because of my unusually fair skin. I couldn't go out in the sun and get a tan, as it seemed everyone else could. I burned and blistered. So I learned to stay in the shade, use sunscreen, and cover up as much as possible. Hardly any fun when all my friends were showing off tans in their halter tops and shorts. I always looked pale as a ghost. People would remark: "You are so pale!". They would hold their arm up against mine to show me how much difference there was (as if I didn't already know!). I took that as an insult, the same as someone saying, "You are so fat!" or "You are so ugly!" As a teen and young twenty-something it really made me self-conscious.
Somewhere in my adulthood this stopped bothering me so much. As an adult, other things become more important, you start to accept yourself as you are, and what other people think or say doesn't matter so much. Now I really enjoy spring. I love to see everything coming to life again. I love sitting on the porch swing when there is a soft, warm breeze.
So why do I feel blue today? Because I need to lose weight and summer is fast approaching. In the winter, I can hide under lovely long skirts and pants and long-sleeved shirts. In the summer, everything is exposed. I can handle being pale and exposed, but being pale and overweight is a double whammy! I feel like the stereotyped Midwesterner that everyone knows doesn't belong in warm weather locales. Like a Lutheran in Lake Wobegon, if you follow that story.
Isn't it awful how much we obsess about our weight? I know it's silly. I'm not obese... just a bit chunky. I would be happy to lose twenty pounds. But my husband is not so accepting. He constantly reminds me that I don't look like I did when I was twenty years younger. The other day he told me about a friend's wife who lost fifty pounds. He said, "you could probably stand to lose fifty pounds yourself". FIFTY pounds! He has a photo of me on his desk. It was taken when we were on vacation in Mexico about twenty years ago That's how he wants me to look. I was only twenty pounds lighter then. So, he obviously thinks I am more overweight than I am. It's not very encouraging.
Well, I have rambled way off of my original premise here. Just brainstorming to analyze why I feel blue today. Pale and overweight and blue... what a mess!
6 comments:
((((HUG))))
A hug for you. You, just as you are. This post... I could've, and have written variations on these same thoughts and feelings. I understand what you are saying.
I hope you find a soft warm breeze and things coming to life. I hope you can embrace your dear self, the way you embrace this new season... appreciating it for all the good it has to offer.
Thank you Natalie, you give the best hugs!
Does your husband still look like he did 20 years ago ... she wonders. Me too !!! I also would get depressed in springtime. Your Lil' Art's winging it's way to you. xo S & les Gang
Good point, Susan! No, he doesn't look like he did twenty years ago. His hair has turned mostly gray, and he insists on wearing a mustache that is entirely white!
The maddening thing is, he snacks constantly and never gains weight... oh well, that's men!
Lovely post, very honest and something I can definitely relate to (weight thing, not the husband thing). Every woman I know including me is trying to lose weight, and unhappy with so many things about their appearance. Though I hope to look back one day and see I've spent more years happy with myself than unhappy.
Well now you're in the catbird seat, Judy, because we now all know it isn't at all healthy to be tan. Pale is the new tan! Ha! And, best of all, your skin will age much more gracefully than the skin of those of us who worshipped the sun.
As for the weight thing, I'm going to give a practical suggestion which I actually think I"ve mentioned in one of our email addresses. (by the way could you send me your email again?) Two words: treadmill and i-pod. I've lost nine or ten pounds with this combo, plus some walking on the days I don't go to the club. I couldn't do the treadmill ten minutes without the music. But with it I can zone for an hour. It's unbelievable to me that I can do it.
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