Day 3

C. and I went to her gym and swam. I think I swam for all of about 15 minutes, but I swam. Not entirely hard, and it was crowded, but the kinks in my legs are almost gone, and I slept like a baby last night.

After the gym, I headed up to Broadway and saw Legally Blonde. I thought I would hate it. I loved it. It was pee your pants funny, and the girl who is Elle Woods is brilliant. And a dynamo! One scene I laughed so hard I actually did wet myself. But just a little.

If your sense of humor goes towards the obnoxious, this is your musical. (Sabrina, you'll love this-- get the music now!)

Thank you to S. for inviting, and to her fabulous friend for being great. I love the CD. I can't wait to see your own show!

I started to write a thing to Cousin regarding my slump. I have hit a number that I distinctly remember in high school, and can't move beyond it. I think energetically it is holding me back. When in high school, this number showed up around sophomore year, and that is when I started to discover and uncover boys, started to realize who I was. I had always known myself as fat, but I didn't realize that it left me out of doing certain things. In grammar school, I was left out of the "dating" (if it could be called that in 8th grade) because there were 21 girls and 11 boys. So really, I was in a good group of girls that had un-requited crushes on boys that didn't deserve my attention. Really, I liked those guys (Keith, Patrick, Stephen)? C'mon!

Then high school hit, and the first year was all about being acclimated. Just getting a group of girlfriends. Then second year, boys. Julie (one of my best girlfriends) was going out with Jeff, and that was weird because I kind of liked him too, and then I had crushes on so many boys. But as always, like back in grammar school, I didn't do anything about it. And I kept feeling like I was supposed to know how to interact with them and be forward, but I just didn't. Boys were competition for grades in school. Then while talking to one of my former crushes, he said his mom calls him "Compassionate" because he is my friend. I look up compassionate.

No one should ever feel sorry for me. I was enraged.

We didn't speak much after that. I thought evil things about his mom. I still do.

Another someone hinted that I would be better off thinner. My brother pulled me into his room and told me in no uncertain terms that unless I lost weight, I would be the fat girl at school. It didn't matter what my personality was, I would just be known as the fat girl. I didn't speak to my brother for 6 months after that. He didn't notice. Neither did my mom or dad.

I still kind of hate my brother for his brutal honesty. However, I was going to show them, so I became:
1) Junior Class President. I ran against the pretty girls, and won.
2) Second lead in every musical: Character actress, and the reason to go see the shows. People still talk about it today (thanks Sabrina!).
3) Junior City Council: I ran youth commission for my city for almost 1 year.
4) Camp Counselor: I worked at a really popular leadership camp and had the most clean fun you can have in a week.
5) Pretty dang popular. Everyone still knows who I am. I am unmissable. A force to be reckoned with.

I'm not sure if people knew me as the fat girl. People knew me as Kim. I dressed well, I spoke well, I was kind and generous. I was funny and could be mean. And I was fat. I do care how I was perceived, but not enough for it to matter.

So I'm back to that weight. And it has a hold on me. And I am looking at things I can let go of to move beyond the weight.

1) I don't really hate my brother. I wish he had shown me some compassion and encouraged me in a different way. And that he didn't get checked out with drugs and alcohol. He was my role model on how boys should act, and he was having sex with his girlfriend all the time, and I wasn't ready for that at all. So if boys wanted sex, and I was a very smart good Catholic girl, then I couldn't talk to boys.

2) I wish things would have be different at home. There was a lot of traveling and a lot of drinking. I didn't have someone to go to and say "I'm confused, what should I be doing" because I got teased a lot by my folks. They meant it lovingly, but it didn't help me-- I am a sensitive flower. I stayed in my room or went out a lot after 9pm.

3) I felt like emotionally I was on my own. I did have support, but I didn't know how to ask for it. More hugs would have been nicer. Less yelling would have been good. I absolutely felt like I couldn't trust the people who put me to bed every night because of the alcohol, but could trust the ones that woke me up in the morning.

I can let that go. I can't change the past, or how it has been perceived by me, but I can let it go. I am not that freshman that can't fit into the costume, I am not that sophomore going to weight watchers with her dad, I am not that girl getting up at 5:30am to go to the gym for two weeks and then abandoning it. I am not that person who wishes for "whatever may come" I make things happen. I am an almost 35 year old grown woman who is taking care of herself, who knows how to talk to men (and boys) and who is in a weight slump. And she is going to workout all those demons that are hanging on to this particular number.

I feel much better now.