The State of the Steff: Rolling Along

Hi!
Bear with me. I’ve just realized it’s been a week since I posted, and I still don’t really have anything to say… I’m sort of “percolating”, processing all of my life. It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks, and I think my brain needs to catch up.
I don’t even know where to begin. Do I tell you about us FINALLY figuring out why my back injury has taken so long to heal? Or that I’m FINALLY doing the final step of physiotherapy for pain management and on May 1st we take me to a whole new level with a physio-guided kinesiologist who’s gonna introduce me to a whole new world of pain? Do I tell you how excited that makes me?
Do I tell you that I bought a too-tight-but-it-fits cute powder-blue denim jacket that’s a size 14 for the first time since *I* was 15? Do I tell you my scooter broke down again, but that it’s restored my faith in mankind ‘cos I’ve had nothing but good people help me as a result? Or that it’s coming back Friday after being dismantled and put together again with a schwack of new parts?
Do I tell you my father’s looking better than he has in years as he sticks to his diet and tries to change his diabetic ways after nearly dying at New Years?
Right. And that’s only some of where my head’s being pulled these days.
The thing is, I don’t know how any of these things really make me feel, because I’m just in a whirlwind. A little overwhelmed, in a good way.
The shopping is the start of what needs to happen over the next month. In the coming weeks, I need to completely reinvent myself, and then I’ll have to live with it until fall. I’m worried. Will the clothes I think I should be wearing be out there? Will a “new” look be found? Will I fit in the right clothes? Will I get a rude awakening on sizes?
I mean, last Friday was the first time since my teens I didn’t have to shop “in the fat girl’s section”. I just had to buy large and extra-large. I had to put things back because they were too big.
And you’d think “Oh, that’s so cool! I bet you were so happy!”
But happy doesn’t enter into it. Sure, some pride, but I have so much more to do. I have so much more to understand about what the hell got me to be 270+ pounds. I need to still find that sense of self that reminds me I’m important and special and fantastic whether I’m a 24 or a 14, but I’m still so size-obsessed that I’m worried I may not have gotten where I need to be emotionally or mentally.
When you’re FAT, not just carrying an extra few pounds, but you’re FAT, it’s easy to feel like the world’s opposed to you. Style is a conspiracy meant to mock you. Clothing stores who reach “sales” only to have a mountain of size 6 on the rack and nothing past 10, are clearly, you’d think, buying way too much for the skinny chicks, that they can’t even sell it all, and here you are, struggling to find something, anything, that just FITS, and probably will pay double what it’d be worth for a “skinny” girl, just because when something’s “plus-sized”, the first plus that gets added is a sizable markup in price.
There’s so much anger you can feel shopping as a FAT girl — against yourself, against your world, against an industry.
And when that weight comes off and that anger starts to ebb… it’s a strange, strange experience.
I don’t KNOW who I really am at this point. I sort of do, but the more weight I lose, the more I surprise myself sometimes. The finding of a wardrobe, though, that will be the biggest change of all. I will know every morning when I look in the closet that I Changed That. I Did That. I will know when I see in the mirror that these clothes hug my curves, not my rolls of fat that it was All Me who got it done. A new wardrobe ain’t just a look, it’s a reckoning with EVERYTHING I have accomplished — and a remembrance of all the pain, tears, and sweat that got me here.
Nothing remains of my old clothes. Nothing. Nearly 30% of my body has been worked off and “lost” in the last year. Not much remains of me, then, does it? Existentially, that’s an interesting consideration when the proof of the old adage “less is more” becomes glaringly true when you consider the “you” you are at 35% more bodyweight versus the “lesser” you.
I’m at the end of a back injury, a debiliating, crippling back injury, that has helped me rethink food, activity, and even my body. I hate the six months I’ve spent in various levels of pain, but I welcome the things I’ve learned and proved to myself.
But between the end of the back injury and the beginning of what truly is to be a whole new physical chapter of my life, and the acquiring of a whole new physical look for the body I’ve been changing for a year now… and both converging in the same few weeks? Well, I’m understandably mentally thrown.
I’m excited. I’m curious. I’m nervous. I’m concerned. I’m panicked. I’m hopeful. I’m stoked.
But I’m not lacking confidence.
I just lack the mental clarity to pull this writing thing off. But you know what’ll happen, eh? The block will shatter in the next day or two, then you’ll see a posting a day for a week.
So, bear with me. I have a LOT on the go right now. I’ll have a lot to report. But I also have a lot of topics waiting to get written on. Hang tight. πŸ™‚

5 thoughts on “The State of the Steff: Rolling Along

  1. Cynthia K. Dalton

    I’m so glad you posted, I was getting worried something bad had happened. It sounds like a lot of things are better now, but all change,even good change, is stressful. At least Spring has finaaly arrived in the Pacific Northwest!

  2. myself

    Well, I was wondering about what was going on in the other end of our lovely country…but you’re still around, so … phew!
    Yeah. I can buy tops in the normal stores now. How bizarre a feeling is that? Only thing on bottoms is, I’m tall, and will probably never get below a size 12, and have these huge muscly thighs, which, while are wonderful and all, don’t fit in normal pants, so plus sized stores and getting everything made smaller at the waist etc is the only way I’m getting pants. Damn!
    I know how hard it is, I’m the smallest I’ve been in over 20 years.
    I’m frightened by it, and excited by it, all at the same time. Amazing isn;t it?

  3. Tony Letts

    You’re discovering the slim Steff who was always the real you inside. Good on you. make sure that any clothes which are too big get made into parachutes or something. Don’t hold on to any ‘just in case’. PRO TIP: Remember wine is fattening so limit it to one case a week. πŸ™‚
    Tony Letts’s last blog post..school leaving report

    1. A Scribe Called Steff Post author

      Heh. I’m gonna be laying off the wine soon. No, I’m hanging on to 1-2 “Wow, I was THAT FAT” shirts, but that’s it. Gotta remember where I was, ‘cos even now, putting that shit on blows my mind. Awesome. πŸ™‚

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