it's like fat has momentum.

i've been overweight most of my life. i can't remember a time anymore when i was happy with my body. there are times that i'm glad of my eye color, or my hair color, or the shape of my feet. but for the most part, my body is just terrain that's difficult to camoflauge.

i don't write about this...well, ever. for the most part i live in blissful ignorance--i'm so used to the body that i don't notice any more. it's like walking with a limp, and after time wondering why you are limping, and not remembering...but still limping anyway.

i've tried watching what i eat--which does help. and exercise--which helps a lot, both physically and mentally. i just have such a difficult time sticking to any kind of regimen.

a few years ago i started taking vitamins, every morning. a nice centrum way to start the day, just in case i was eating for shit. (which happens often in kimland, where you get distracted before you can eat, and then realize later you're so hungry that you'll eat anything) they say that after 21 days, if you do something the same every day, you develop a habit.

for a while i thought this was true. and then one morning i missed taking my vitamin. and after that i didn't take one again.

i thought about it months and months later, when i was talking to my sister. we figured out that we'd both done the same thing, around the same time: put the vitamin bottle next to our clock, so that when we sat up and turned off the alarm, we would just take the pill. however we both did the same thing--after a few months, missed and just never picked it up again.

is it my memory, losing the middle parts of the bridge, unable to continue in a straight line?

yesterday i took a walk, before movie night with dan. i walked until i was sweaty and red-faced. as i walked it came to me that there were many things that i could say that i didn't remember when it started, or i couldn't remember a day when... (for example, i can't remember a day that i haven't eaten one piece of chocolate) i realized that i cannot say that i can't remember a day on which i was healthy.

which is scary. i don't want to have a zipper scar on my chest, between breasts, like my father's bypass scar. i don't want to always take a hypertension pill. but then why is it so hard to change?

i think part of it is comfort.

when i feel sad, i sink into those things i know will bring me comfort--my pillow, a familiar book, a movie, curling up with my cats, cleaning something. i hide in those things.

if i apply this thought to my body, suddenly it becomes clear--i am hiding. behind one gigantic fat cell.

when i think of it like that, it seems silly. beyond silly. well into ridiculous. i see me, the fat me, hiding behind that one tiny cell. which in my mind i can see as huge. it's the size of the world. i've hidden behind it for years. for most of my life.

but the cell isn't opaque. it isn't solid. it's clear. you can see me, behind it, looking out at the world.

i wouldn't know how to clothe a thin body, my subconcious shouts. what kind of bra would i wear, if i didn't have the boobs i do? what if i go too far, what if i get too thin? what if i try and nothing happens? what if i just stay fat?

years ago i was really, really healthy for a good stretch of time. i lost weight. i felt better. i wasn't depressed as often, and i wanted to do things.

thus my conclusion: the more baggage i schlep around in the form of extra weight, the less i feel like moving. it's like fat has momentum.

anyway, when i was eating better and exercising more, i used to visualize this body as if it were a candle. the longer i burned, the more wax poured off of me. i pictured the weight sliding off my bones, pooling on the ground. i pictured walking away from that weight, leaving behind something the size of michelle pfeiffer, a pile of liquid that i no longer needed.

***

i see this shield that's sheltered
my soul, the comfort
the knowledge of
being
solid.

i relate to earth in a way
you can never imagine--dense,
molten core, compressed and bright,
it's burning inside me, somewhere
you can't see
i've hidden it so successfully
that stephen hawking would need
another lifetime to create
that equation and that theory.

i know the edges of this self
this body that i propel
and fuel, this flesh i wash
and perfume.

it is simpler to hide
than it is to peer over the counter
and into the mirror
and know
know to your very cells
that the body looking back
is your own

for so long it's been missing
a lost dog, reclaimed, the watch found
under the bed
i don't have to sit and affirm--
"I love my arms. I love my calves. I love my ass."
in the end, i just have to
accept that all these bits
are
mine