A smallish thread on weight and body image:
So, we've just moved to a place where there's a community pool quite literally around the corner. I was ecstatic about this, because I grew up with a pool while living near the beach and haven't been able to swim regularly since I was seventeen.
This also means that the two swimming costumes I have right now are both hand-me-downs from my mother, who is very fit and active. I haven't had much chance to wear them recently - the last time I swam was over a year ago - and my weight has been fluctuating a lot.
I picked out what I wrongly thought was the larger of the two swimsuits. Getting into it was like trying to squeeze myself into the mouth of a juvenile anaconda: I was technically going to fit, but there was some serious compression and a fair bit of swearing involved first.
This cossie is also fairly ancient and looks it. A black one-piece with purple straps that are faded to a sort of weird blue-grey, with the fabric stretched thin in places. Not remotely flattering, but at least I knew it was going to stay on.
All this being so, I felt self-conscious for the walk to the pool, even with a sundress on over the top. This feeling of self-consciousness increased when we arrived and saw that all the other women present were identically slim, with fashionable bikini tops and boyshorts.
And then I got in the water, and immediately stopped caring, because being in the water felt amazing and blissful. I've lost all my old regular-swimming muscles, but I've still got a good freestyle stroke, so I bashed out a couple of laps and then floated a bit.
The unhelpful part of my brain was still pointing out how much bigger I was that everyone else, but with the water to calm me down, I was able to flip that around and identify this as just one of many differences, so that it came to feel like a random, normal thing.
Yes, I was bigger. But I also had short hair instead of long, a one-piece instead of a bikini, wet hair instead of dry, was swimming laps instead of sitting. And I liked those things about myself, not b/c I disliked the other women, but b/c they made me happy.
By focusing on positive differences, I was able to turn my self-consciousness about my body around, so that I felt happy to be different - happy to be myself, and what it represented - without having to feel negatively about the people around me, or negative about myself.
Anyway. It was a small, nice mental change to be able to effect, so I thought I'd share it.
FIN.
FIN.
