In which I do not write the identity entry I intended to write months ago, and instead continue to h

[rsadelle]

This is eighth in an occasional series.

Getting my hair cut in December freaked me out. Until then, even when I kept losing weight, I still looked like me. But then I got my hair cut in a completely different style, and I knew that girl, but I don't know this girl.

That girl suffered through PE and devoured fiction to take her away from the world. This girl pays for yoga and dance classes and actually likes nonfiction. That girl knew who she was. This one doesn't have a clue.

***

I used to go to Sunday breakfast at the coffee shop down the street with my mom and some of her friends. One day, at the end of breakfast when there weren't many of us left, C said, "I'm doing something that I'm really happy about. You might have strong feelings about it, but I just want you to say you're happy for me." I thought, "What, is she dating a Republican?" But, no, she was having gastric bypass surgery. She said that she'd been trying to gain the last ten pounds to get her BMI up to what it has to be to be eligible for it, and that she cried the first time they told her she didn't qualify.

Afterwards, everyone said how great she looked. (I thought she looked tired and drawn.) They also started talking about weight. Every week. It's been bad enough that I've had to have at least one conversation with every single person I know about weight as I've lost it, but every week started to get to me. Sunday breakfast was losing its appeal anyway as its often depressing, but it was the weight issue that pushed me over and made me stop going.

***

My belly dance teacher told me that glasses don't fit the belly dancer look, and that she never wore contacts until she started dancing. I'd never really thought about contacts before. Just reading about them online made my eyes tear up, so I'm not sure I'm cut out for them. I've thought, for years, that glasses suit me, both personality and look. But if personality and look have changed, is that still true? I also don't want to be that girl: the one who loses weight and gets a haircut and contacts and shows up at her high school reunion looking totally different. I don't want people to look at me and make assumptions that aren't true. My changes weren't about them or anyone else; they were about me. Then again, I have changed, and I want people to see that. This isn't such an out-there concern; my ten-year reunion is this summer, and I'm looking forward to seeing people. The only thing I'm dreading about it is having to have eighty bajillion more conversations about my weight. I'm tired of it, eight-part and growing LJ series notwithstanding.

Comments

[allegram.livejournal.com]

Well first of all I have contacts and still wear glasses a lot, I don't run exclusively to one or the other, and especially if you start with contacts you won't be able to only wear them as it takes a while for your eyes to adjust. Each one has pros and cons, and I select what I'm wearing on a day based on that days activities.

Plus you might not have to talk about it as much as you think at the reunion, many people are probably going to assume that it's an old change and other than a "you look great" comment old changes aren't really worth talking about are they?

Oh and honey, you still look like you, a thinner, happier version of you, but your inherent Ruthiness is there regardless of hair-length. My Grandma had gastric bypass and lost a lot of weight and she looks like a stranger to me (she walked in the room and I thought, who's that woman who looks like Grandma Jane? Grandma Jane being my grandmother's mom, who I never realized she looked like before), but I've never for a moment even thought "who's that girl who looks like Ruth", you're clearly Ruth. I even have pictures of you out at a variety of ages, and when people are asking who the various pictured people are I only have to identify you once.

Maybe Sunday breakfast would be better if you provided them with something more exciting to talk about than weight. Like having a real-life Dharma and Greg thing and eloping with a republican. Or you could kill the president of Paraguay with a spoon. You could check in like once a month and see if they've found new conversation topics...

Anyways, I'm sure my responses are completely non-helpful, but you know you really might feel better if you killed someone with a spoon! (Cuz, it's dull it hurts more...) Sadly must go to work now...

-Erin

[rsadelle]

I think you underestimate the way people feel free to talk about your body if you've lost a lot of weight.

Sunday breakfast had other issues, too.