I woke up a little early this morning, but ready to go!  Whereas yesterday morning was full of dread about my walk, today I was itching to get out the door and on my way.  I might have done extra as well, but I do have a small blister on one toe and it started to bother me a little after a couple of miles.  I probably need better shoes.  I don’t get all that many blisters, but I’d love it if I just got none; I had no sooner nursed one of them away when this one popped up.  It’s a very slow game of whack-a-mole on my poor little feet.

A few weeks ago, I found a pair of denim shorts that I used to wear quite a bit while I was living in Alaska.  At a size 46, I could just get them on with a little effort.  They weren’t uncomfortable once on, so I started wearing them all the time and they became increasingly easy to put on.  While making dinner last night, I became fed up and removed those same shorts right there in the middle of the kitchen and tossed them aside.  When it was convenient, I retrieved a pair of sweatpants to replace them.  They have been getting increasingly loose for a while now, and it has become a chore to keep them up, even when I hold them up.  Now, yes, I could get myself a belt, but the point still remains that I went from barely being able to squeeze into shorts from 15 years ago to not having enough girth to hold them up.  And that is progress if you ask me!

The casing that once held so much fat is weird.  It can be squeezed into pants that might otherwise just fit if I hadn’t stretched out the skin.  I had another experience similar to the denim shorts late last night.  In my quest for another pair of shorts, I tried on some from my twenties.  I was a size 38 for many years, so most of my clothes from that time–and yes, I still have a lot of them–are that size.  I was actually able to a pair on and fastened.  They weren’t still comfortable once on, squeezing me just a bit too much, but they fastened and that made me literally jump up and down in a sort of cartoonish moment of glee.  It means a few things.

1. Apparently, I can do this.  I need a lot of reminders!

2. As I continue from here, I have plenty of clothes to look forward to.  That said, I wouldn’t call the clothes of my teens & twenties aspirational.  Those were the days when I primarily shopped at County Seat and my edgy clothes came from The Buckle.  I was default settings White.  I sorta still am.

3. I am a “Skinny Legend.”

4. I can, and will, take over the world.

Today is probably going to be a stressful day.  I’m trying to fight that back as best I can, but it’s going to be very hot this afternoon and I have to get some things packed and ready to move to storage tomorrow.  That doesn’t even address the lack of space I have in the storage unit, but that isn’t something I have the mental energy to quibble over just now.  Generally, I’m feeling great this morning.  I just know what is coming today and I’m not sure just having the right attitude will help me out.

[Walk #83]

Mindful Musings: In My Green Shirt

There’s a photo I like to share of myself when I was around my heaviest.  It was one I had Justin take of me standing on the front porch in one of the many short-lived “diet” plans I attempted in the time when I wasn’t taking things as seriously.  I stood in the same spot during my meditation, glasses in my pocket, trying to focus on the birds–often, it is the birds that get me out of my own way–but I struggled to not think about how much I feel changed.  And then I realized I am wearing the very clothes I was wearing in that photo.  They hang loosely on me now, but it made me really want a photo recreation today.  I’ll see if Justin will take another.  Maybe I should wait for a year for this kind of thing, but I am impatient.  When I looked it up, I found that the shirt isn’t the same.  They are the same size though, and the pants are almost certainly the same.