Whip My Assets

Scrimmage Recap

2012-02-11T22:16:00.014Z

Friday night's scrimmage featured Free State Roller Derby's Black Eyed Suzies (my team) vs. Charm City Roller Girls' Mobtown Mods. Some extra skaters from Charm City and the Mason-Dixon Roller Vixens helped round out the rosters.

Charm City's all-star team is one of the best in the country, and some of those all-stars were skating against us. Our team is still pretty new so we weren't very evenly matched, but that's ok because the only way you grow in any sport is to play with and against strong opponents.

The most intense moment of the night for me happened while I was on the bench. My teammate Melagomaniac was jamming against an extremely tough Charm City lineup. Mel's a good skater and very tough herself, and in that jam I lost count of how many times she got knocked down--it must have been five or six at least, hard hits. I used to watch boxing with my dad when I was a kid, and that's what it reminded me of--that moment in boxing when someone gets knocked down, and you watch them struggling to get back up. Over and over Mel got back up and took another hit. And every time you could see that she was hurting a little more, and getting up a little more slowly, but every single time she got up. I kept almost wishing she'd stay down because I didn't want to watch her get hurt anymore. It was terrible and amazing and a true display of athletic heroism.

Here's Mel getting back up while three red blockers wait for her:

Here are some more photos from the scrimmage, courtesy of Keith Rideout. This is my teammate Theresa in the position of lead jammer:

And here's Ana Roll taking a whip:

And I don't know what kind of craziness is going on in this picture, but there are a LOT of people on the ground:

And here I am in the green helmet:

The Six Month Mark, and My First Post-Surgery Scrimmage

2012-02-11T15:59:00.005Z

Today marks six months since I had my diverticulitis surgery.

I wrote this post two weeks after surgery and only four days after being released from the hospital. The reality of what my body had gone through had just begun to sink in. I was in pain. I couldn't walk around the block without getting tired. I couldn't lift more than 20 pounds. The surgeon told me it would take six months for the abdominal wall to heal completely, and February seemed so incredibly far away. The worst part was, I had no idea how to get from the sad physical shape I was in on that day to the shape I needed to be in to go back to roller derby. I hated that feeling of not knowing what to do to get better safely and efficiently, not knowing how the healing process was going to unfold. I'm a girl who likes a plan, and there didn't seem to be any plan except "start slow," which is what people kept telling me.

So I started slow, and I basically just made up the plan as I went along based on how my body felt on any given day. Five weeks after surgery, I started the Couch to 5K program at Week 1, running 60 seconds at a time. About thirteen weeks out from surgery, I went back to roller derby part-time. At eighteen weeks, I completed the Couch to 5K program and began regularly running 3 miles three times per week. About twenty weeks out, I added in two strength training sessions per week. As of last week, I was up to 5-6 hours of roller derby practice per week. I actually think I have more strength and endurance now than I did before surgery.

Last night, I participated in my first roller derby scrimmage since May 2011. Here's a blurry picture. I'm seventh from the left in the green helmet:

So now I know what "start slow" meant for me, and I know what the end of that six-month healing process looks like, and I feel pretty good. The main lesson here, of course, is that things work themselves out. That's a hard lesson for me because I'm impatient, and I think and worry far too much. But the fact is, I would have gotten to last night with or without the worrying. So next time I'm fretting and worrying about things I can't control, I'll try to remember that, and I'll do the best I can and trust that ultimately it will be enough.

Roller Derby Muscles

2012-02-08T00:08:00.000Z

In case you were wondering:

Is Fear Ever OK?

2012-02-07T02:21:00.002Z

Today a man I liked but hardly knew told me he didn’t want to continue getting to know me because I don’t want to have children. I had a feeling this was coming, and so the subject has been on my mind recently. The idea of having kids one day is the thing that scares me most in the world.

Two things scare me about having kids. First, I am afraid I would be a terrible mother. Second, I am afraid I would hate being a mother and feel trapped. Anything else in life, you can get out of. You’re in over your head in a job? Get a different job. You’re trapped in your marriage? Get a divorce. But if you’re a crappy or unhappy mother there’s not one damn thing you can do about it without hurting an innocent child.

And here’s the flip side of that. What if I did turn out to be good at it? I have a strong caretaker instinct. I’m inclined to take care of the people I love at my own personal expense. And with a child, that instinct would be even stronger. I’m afraid that I’d give and give until there was nothing left for me. Ever read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree? The kid in that book sucks all the life out of the giving tree. It’s not a happy story if you read it carefully.

I know it’s important to face fear. I don’t believe in saying no to new experiences because I’m afraid, but this seems like a special case. I think about this issue quite a bit because I’m 37 years old and, let’s face it, there’s not a lot of time left in which to change my mind. My friends who have children—even the ones who were ambivalent about their pregnancies in the beginning—tell me it’s the most amazing experience life has to offer. I do worry, sometimes, that I might be missing out on the extraordinary experience of loving and raising a child of my own. But the thing is, I just don’t know how you push through fear like that when so much is at stake, or if you even should. I mean, it seems like you shouldn’t have to talk yourself into having a child.

Obviously, all of this is bigger than getting dumped by someone I hardly know. It’s about me and my own personal emotional stalemate, and I don’t really know what to do about that...except maybe nothing.

February Goals

2012-02-03T01:34:00.001Z

Now that I’m cleared for hitting, I plan to return to Wednesday night scrimmage practices with my team. Given that I still struggled with fatigue in January, I’m going to offset this extra night of derby by backing off slightly on the running this month, reducing my goal from three runs a week to two. As the year continues and I get stronger, I’ll aim to add that third run back into my schedule. In the meantime, here are my goals for February:

1. Run three miles twice a week.

2. Complete two strength training workouts per week.

3. Skate six times during the month. (A full month of twice weekly practices would be eight skating sessions. This goal gives me a little wiggle room as I add that extra practice day into my schedule in case I need the extra rest at some point.)

4. Eat 5 fruits and vegetables per day.

January Goals--How I Did

2012-02-03T01:31:00.001Z

Work got extremely hectic the third week of January, and my goals took a hit as a result. That week, the only goal I met was my strength training goal. Even so, I turned things around the last week of the month when I got back on track with everything but the running goal.

Run three miles three times a week.
I met this goal in the first two weeks of the month. In the last two weeks, I ran twice a week.

Strength training twice a week.
I met this goal for the month of January. Yay me! I also exceeded it a couple of weeks with the extra upper body workouts.

Skate once a week.
I met this goal three of four weeks.

Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day.
Although there were five days this month I didn’t meet this goal, my average daily intake for the month was five a day. I’m considering this one a success.

Other Milestones
I finally passed my second assessment in roller derby. Passing this assessment makes me officially “scrimmage-ready,” which means I am cleared for hitting in practice, and I can participate in scrimmages against other teams. Although I’m frustrated that surgery slowed my progress, I’m also really proud of how far I’ve come in the two years since I put on a pair of roller skates for the first time ever.

Although I still struggled with fatigue this month, the amount of running and strength training I did was more than I was doing pre-surgery. I was rewarded with increased strength and endurance at roller derby practice. This month, I was able to skate 31 laps in 5 minutes, beating my pre-surgery speed record of 28 laps.*

*Our track is smaller than regulation size.

What I Eat

2012-01-27T03:33:00.003Z

People who have lost weight can be a little like religious zealots—convinced that whatever diet they followed is the best, and sometimes the only way, to lose weight. I don’t think there’s any one way to be successful, but I do think a basic knowledge of science and a healthy dose of common sense is helpful. Today I’d like to talk about the diet plan I followed and how I adapted it to be more realistic and sustainable for me.

In the fall of 2003, at my highest weight ever, I went to see a new primary care doctor for a physical. While I expected she would say something about my weight, I didn’t expect her to provide any useful advice beyond eat less and exercise more, which is perfectly sound advice but not helpful since everybody already knows that. She surprised me, though. After diagnosing me as pre-diabetic, she recommended a book, Sugar Busters! She told me that she had struggled with her weight and that this was the diet she followed. I figured if it was good enough for an actual physician, it was good enough for me.

Sugar Busters explains insulin resistance and hypoglycemia and the way these two processes promote fat storage and cravings.

Insulin Resistance
Insulin is a hormone that prevents blood sugar (glucose) from rising too high. The problem with insulin is that it signals the body to store energy as fat, making it more difficult for the body to burn fat. A diet high in sugar overstimulates the body’s insulin response, leading to insulin resistance.

According to the book, Insulin resistance is a condition of decreased responsiveness to insulin wherein the fat cells, liver cells and muscle cells have become insensitive to normal levels of circulating insulin. Usually a small burst of insulin will lower blood sugar. However, in an insulin resistant individual, this does not occur, and more insulin is required to do the job. Over time, insulin resistance leads to diabetes.

Hypoglycemia
Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar. It’s no secret that the higher blood sugar spikes, the farther it falls. As the insulin-resistant body has more difficulty dealing with high blood sugar levels, hypoglycemia becomes more problematic. Symptoms include hunger, fatigue, headaches, sugar cravings and more.

The Diet
The goal of the Sugar Busters diet is to avoid foods that raise blood sugar, thus reducing the body’s need to produce large amounts of insulin and reducing the subsequent hypoglycemic response and the vicious cycle of cravings. It calls for a high fiber/low glycemic diet, approximately 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. The basic principles include:
• Avoiding high glycemic foods such as potatoes, white rice, corn products, refined flours, refined sugars, soda, beer and a few high glycemic fruits and vegetables.
• Eating at least 3 meals a day.
• Watching portion sizes—which actually gets easier as cravings diminish.
• Avoiding late night snacks.
• Consuming 25-30 grams of fiber daily.

What Worked for Me
I followed the diet pretty strictly for a few months. It was actually kind of fun to figure out how to substitute lower glycemic foods in cooking. For instance, I replaced potatoes with chickpeas in soups and stews and substituted sweet potatoes for regular potatoes as a side dish.

I found the diet to be, at its heart, a basic healthy eating plan. Even with substitutions like the ones above, it wasn’t a radical departure from the traditional meat and potatoes diet I grew up eating so much as a way to tweak that way of eating and make it healthier. Furthermore, very few foods were off limits. There were long lists of healthy, delicious foods that were fine to eat: nuts, red wine, avocados, fish, dark chocolate.

I lost about 15 pounds right away, and then the diet started to feel like too much work and planning, and other parts of my life started to fall apart, and really I just wasn’t ready to deal with the emotional aspects of weight loss that I have written so much about on this blog. I stopped following the diet but retained some of the changes to my habits, most notably continuing to make sure that almost all the grains I consumed were whole grains. Although it would be another four years before I began to lose weight again—and I gained some of that 15 pounds back in the interim—those small changes had one significant impact: they lowered my blood sugar levels to normal. I was no longer “pre-diabetic.”

What Didn’t Work
The way I eat now is basically a modified version of the Sugar Busters diet, but it’s not as strict. The main difference is that I some of the forbidden foods in moderation. As Oprah Winfrey famously stated, “Nobody ever got fat eating carrots.” I eat carrots and bananas and once or twice a week, even a potato. Potatoes have vitamins and minerals! Potatoes are a thousand times healthier than some of the other white foods. And also, I just love them.

I haven’t eliminated all sugar, and the way I figure it I don’t have to. If I follow the diet well enough to keep my blood sugar regulated most of the time, then the occasional insulin spike is not going to hurt me. In other words, sometimes I eat cake. Or gelato. Or pie.

The Take-Aways
I never really understood the science behind healthy eating until I read this book. For me, the most amazing thing I learned was that you can actually “cure” pre-diabetes and even Type 2 diabetes by eating right. My grandmother lost her toes to diabetes. I don’t want that to happen to me! (It’s hard to skate when you don’t have any toes, after all.)

The second most amazing thing I learned was the power that small changes like switching to whole grains can have on health. It has taken me a long time to lose this weight because I did it by making small, sustainable changes over time. I’m still making changes, like trying to get more fruits and vegetables into my diet. But these changes aren’t driven by fads, or marketing campaigns, or celebrity spokespeople. They’re driven by my growing knowledge of how my body works and what it needs to function well.

My Two-Year Skaterversary

2012-01-24T03:26:00.005Z

Two years ago yesterday I had my first roller skating lesson.

I keep having to remind myself that even though it has been two years, I missed a lot of time being sick. If I can stay healthy, I know I'll be a much better skater two years from now.

Here are my skates when I first got them in the summer of 2010.

And here they are now, all broken in.

Note the classy duct tape on the toes.

Hard

2012-01-22T18:49:00.003Z

At work this week, my supervisor "balanced" my work load by giving some of it to one of my colleagues. I needed the help. I have an unbelievable, soul-crushing amount of work to do in the next few months. Still, I felt uncomfortable about asking for help even though I desperately needed it. My supervisor said, "Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint."

On Thursday I went on yet another first date. At one point the conversation turned to poetry, and I explained about my poem a day project. A couple days later, when we had decided there wouldn't be a second date, the guy said this in an email, "I liked your incredibly earnest and very serious approach to poetry; maybe you need to cut yourself some slack, but that story was very sweet."

This weekend I have been exhausted. I got eight hours of sleep the last two nights and a two-hour nap yesterday afternoon, and I am still dragging. I decided to skip roller derby practice, and I am just so frustrated. I've been doing so well these last few weeks, and feeling so good. It seems like I take a couple steps forward and then a couple steps back. All morning long I tried to convince myself to push it and go to practice. How will I ever make any progress if I don't push? Not going makes me feel like a wimp, but I finally just accepted the fact that I don't have the physical or mental energy for it today. I thought of my old life coach. I asked myself what I'd tell my dad on one of his off days. I'd tell him to rest.

Do you sense a theme emerging here? Am I too hard on myself? I don't know. I'm not good at knowing when to push and when to rest. Sometimes I worry that I cut myself too much slack. I wish I felt good enough that I didn't have to ask myself these questions.

Body Image Links

2012-01-22T02:10:00.002Z

Plus-size model Katya Zharkova poses nude to draw attention to the fashion industry's unhealthy body image ideals.

Joshilyn Jackson writes An Open Letter to the Fat Girl I Saw at Hot Yoga in New York City.

Coffee Might Be Good For You!

2012-01-21T17:32:00.003Z

After my surgery in August, I cut back on my coffee intake. After ten days in the hospital without caffeine, I was over the withdrawal symptoms, and I initially thought I would go completely caffeine free. (I don’t drink soda at all. I’ve never liked it. So coffee is the only major source of caffeine in my diet.) After awhile I realized that I longed for a hit of caffeine to start my day, so I started allowing myself my morning cup of coffee. Still, I skipped the second mid-morning cup, cutting down from 24 ounces to 16.

The problem is, I get sleepy in the afternoon. When I was on vacation over the holidays, I took naps. My first day back at work at the beginning of January was almost unbearable as I struggled to be productive when all I really wanted to do was lie down. When I read that Doctor Oz had declared coffee to be good for you in the January issue of Oprah's magazine, I thought maybe I should consider bringing back my late morning cup. So I did, and I have found that I am more alert in the afternoon but still ready to go to sleep by bedtime. Perfect.

Can it possibly be true? Is coffee good for you? It appears that coffee (both regular and decaf) might be correlated with decreased risk of diabetes and cancer. The caffeine in regular coffee may also be linked to decreased risk of dementia. (Did you know that pregnant women are even allowed to have some coffee now? I did not.)

The science is not conclusive. As we learned in statistics class, correlation is not causation; however, coffee is known to be high in antioxidants, and the research seems to indicate that even caffeinated coffee is not as bad as I once thought.

What I Think About When I Run

2012-01-14T23:46:00.001Z

For the last four weeks, I have successfully run three miles three times a week. This is a lifetime running record for me. When I told my co-worker she said, “I think that means you’re a runner.” I said I don’t think you’re a runner until you actually start liking it.

I really dislike running. Mostly this is because I find it extremely difficult, and so far in my limited experience, it never gets any easier. The distances may get longer. I may even run a little bit faster. But I never feel good while I’m doing it. So every day when I put on my running shoes it is a struggle to get myself out the door.

A lot of the time I am running, I am thinking about whether or not I should just give it up and start walking instead. In the beginning, this was about fear. Every time I set off to run, I would be afraid of failing. I would think, “If I feel this bad now, and I am not even halfway there, how am I ever going to have the energy to finish?”

Now that I have some running experience under my belt, I have learned to answer this question by paying attention to my body. This may sound silly, but as soon as those thoughts kick in, I do a little self-assessment. First I focus on my breathing. I have asthma, although it has been exceptionally well-controlled the last few years. (When I started running outside this year, I never believed my lungs would let me run in 30 degree weather, but I have done it several mornings lately.) Breathing is a legitimate concern for me. So I focus on my breathing. Usually I discern that my breathing is fine. My lungs aren’t tight, I’m not gasping for air. The breathing is perfectly fine.

After that, I turn my focus to my legs. Lately my legs have been really tired during my runs. I’m not sure why—maybe from strength training. Even so, my legs are the strongest part of my body. I tell myself they would have to be pretty darn exhausted before they stopped holding me up, and a three mile run is not likely to tire them out that much. (I actually go through this thought process with myself almost every time I run. I know it sounds crazy, but it helps.) The other thing I know about my legs is that they’ve got to be strong for roller derby. So after I ascertain that I’m not likely to collapse anytime soon, I start reminding myself that this is the time to push and strengthen up these legs of mine for skating.

You’d be surprised how much this helps.

Occasionally there are days when it’s not the lungs or the legs but a general malaise of exhaustion. I had this in the weeks after Thanksgiving when I struggled to run even twice a week. It’s when I feel that deep exhaustion—like I am trying to drag myself through a swimming pool of molasses—that I let myself slack off. I don’t have any scientific knowledge to base it on, but I do believe that when you feel a certain kind of tiredness, your body is telling you to rest.

I’ve mentioned before that my sister is an elite runner. When I first starting running a couple years ago, she told me that she feels like crap most days when she runs. I was amazed by this, and I’m also amazed by how much mental energy running requires, at least for me. In addition to reasoning with my legs and lungs, I often find my mind going back to the quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” I thought of this quite a bit when I was working my way back up through the Couch to 5K after surgery. It helped me to push through Weeks 5, 6, and 7—the hardest weeks in my opinion. I just kept telling myself that I had to succeed at those runs if I was ever going to have any hope of getting back to the fitness level I had before surgery.

I don’t know if running is ever going to get any easier. Maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe it’s just that the mental muscles toughen up over time, allowing us to push harder. That wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose.

Weight Training with Brian

2012-01-13T01:36:00.001Z

I will forever be grateful to Brian for teaching me how to work out with free weights. Before I met him, I did all my strength training on machines because I was afraid of hurting myself with free weights. I figured—and I have no idea whether this is actually true or not—that a person who doesn’t know what they are doing would be less likely to hurt themselves on a machine since the machine basically guides you through the motion of the exercise. However, my workouts with Brian used machines and free weights, and as I mastered the various free weight exercises, my confidence grew and I worried less about hurting myself.

I don’t have a gym membership right now. My office has a small gym, and I haven’t been able to justify paying money to join a gym when I can work out there for free. And truthfully, most of my exercising doesn’t take place in a gym. I run outside unless the weather is really awful, and I use the Roller Derby Workout video, which targets all the important derby muscles (abs, legs and ass), for strength training.

My office gym only has a few machines, but it has plenty of free weights, so last week I put together a collection of upper body exercises to balance out the Roller Derby Workout. I ran it by Brian, and he said it was a solid selection as long I was getting an ab workout during my video sessions. Here’s the list:

Chest Press*
Triceps Extension
Dumbbell Fly
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Dumbbell Bicep Curl
Hammer Curl
Dumbbell Row
Wrist Curl

It’s a really quick and simple upper body workout.

I think if I had room in my apartment for any piece of workout equipment, I’d pick a simple weight bench and some free weights. You can do so much with them. Throw in a pair of sneakers for running outside, and you’re pretty much set.

*This is the one machine exercise on the list.

How I Got Over My Fear of the Gym

2012-01-11T03:34:00.003Z

Yesterday I wrote about how afraid I used to be of the gym. The story of how I got over this fear is also the story of how this blog began. I worked with a personal trainer, Brian White, in Brewer, Maine. Actually, Brian and I worked out a deal--he'd train me for free, and I'd blog about it. I got a personal trainer, and he got some marketing. We abandoned the arrangement rather quickly--turns out business and friendship don't always mix, and we both decided we'd rather stay friends; however, in the short time Brian trained me, I gained the knowledge and confidence I needed to face the gym alone.

If you are afraid of the gym, I highly recommend working with a personal trainer even if you can only afford a couple of sessions. If you want to know what it's like working with a personal trainer, go back and read the beginning entries of this blog, where I wrote about the process. You might also want to check out Brian's guest post on how to communicate effectively with your trainer.

If you go back and read Brian's post, you'll notice that he mentions bench pressing 500 pounds. That's right, people. Nothing will deter people in the gym from messing with you like standing next to a guy who looks like this:

(And yes, that's Brian in the video. What a badass!)

Putting the Rat in Gym Rat

2012-01-10T03:34:00.002Z

I decided to add an upper body strength training session to my workout routine to balance out all the legs, ass and core work I have been doing, so tonight after work I found myself in the gym at my office hitting the free weights. About halfway through my workout a woman came in, looked at me, rolled her eyes and muttered to the guy next to me, “Must be January.”

If you happen to be one of those people who gets irritated with the sudden influx of New Year’s Resolutioners in your gym at this time of year, I have something to tell you.

For years when I was overweight, I was afraid to go to the gym. I worried I wouldn’t be able to figure out the equipment. I worried I was too fat and would break the treadmill. Most of all, I worried that the other people in the gym would take one look at me and know I didn’t belong there—that I wasn’t good enough. The prospect of facing all that shame and fear was too much for me, so I stayed away. I don’t believe I set foot in a gym until I had lost my first 25 pounds. I wrote about the first time I dared to go back onto the volleyball court, a similarly terrifying experience.

So the next time you are tempted to make a snarky comment or roll your eyes at someone in your gym, I suggest you remember that it may have taken an act of heroic courage just for that person to walk through the front door, and if you can’t find the compassion and grace necessary to keep your mouth shut, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you might not be as healthy as you think you are.

Here are a few other things to keep in mind:

You don’t know to whom you are speaking. For instance, you may not be talking to a rookie. You may in fact be talking to a roller derby skater who was sidelined by a surgery that left her unable to lift more than 20 pounds or walk to the grocery store without getting tired. Perhaps this skater has, in fact, been following a workout routine since October in an effort to regain her strength and stamina for an exceptionally demanding, not to mention badass, sport.

What, you never tried something new? I get it. This is the thing you’re good at. This is where you feel comfortable and powerful and strong. But have you never tried anything new? Do you remember ever feeling afraid to be out of your comfort zone? Do you remember what it was like to take a risk, mess up, and try again? That’s all a New Year’s resolution is—a commitment to take a risk and try something new and see if this is the time it sticks. You've never done that? Then I feel sorry for you.

Women, you especially should know better. Seriously, are we not judged enough in our culture? We do not need to be making it any harder on each other. We do not need to be making each other feel bad. That’s one of the reasons I love roller derby. It is one of the most affirming sports I have ever played. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not about accepting mediocrity. It’s about recognizing that everyone has room to learn and grow, and if one person does better, we all do better. Or, in the words of my pee wee basketball coach, Mr. Looke, “We win as a team, we lose as a team, we run as a team.” It works like that in life, too.

You are part of the problem. I have a sneaking suspicion that the kind of people who belittle newbies at the gym are probably also the kind of people who complain that obesity is driving up the cost of health care. Well, guess what? Every time you intimidate or humiliate a person into leaving the gym, you assume some culpability for that, too.

Sometimes people keep their New Year’s resolutions. For instance, I happen to know a woman who took up roller derby as a New Year’s resolution two years ago. Now she skates for one of the top teams in the country.

Finally, if none of this has gotten through to you and you are still committed to acting obnoxious, I suggest you put on a pair of roller skates and meet me on the track. I don’t think it will take very long to find out who’s more hardcore.

On the Fat Trap

2012-01-07T22:58:00.003Z

This article about the biological and genetic factors that make it difficult to lose weight and keep it off is very interesting.

I don’t know if I am genetically pre-disposed to weight gain, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Many of the people in my family are overweight. And if the science about how the body changes in response to dieting is credible, then I likely ruined myself with my first diet at the age of 14. Nevertheless, I have lost 50 pounds in the last four years and have so far kept it off, although my weight during this time has fluctuated up and down by 6 or 7 pounds. What interests me most, however, is not all the reasons it’s hard for me to keep weight off—I am well aware of them—but what I can do to increase the likelihood of being successful.

According to the article, the National Weight Loss Registry tracks 10,000 people who have lost weight and kept it off: There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight — some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery. But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.

So basically, how people lose weight varies, but the vigilance and hard work required to keep it off do not. I think the vigilance itself is what’s valuable, though, not necessarily the number on the scale. The lifestyle changes that cause a person to lose weight—eating more healthily, exercising more—are not things we should do just to be skinny. They are things we should do to be healthy. Not all overweight people are unhealthy. Certainly not all naturally skinny people are healthy. But people who eat well and exercise regularly, regardless of how much they weigh? Odds are pretty good that these people are healthier than those who don’t.

So I think we need to reframe the conversation about weight loss. I will be the first to admit that when I started losing weight, the only thing on my mind was getting thinner; however, what has motivated me over the long term is the desire to be healthy and energetic enough to do things that bring me joy—hiking, playing roller derby, etc. I’m not skinny now, and even losing the last fifteen pounds to get to my goal weight is not going to make me skinny, but I believe it will make me healthier.

Shame and fear are terrible motivators. That is practically the whole thesis of this blog. We can’t hate ourselves for not being skinny enough. Instead, we have to love ourselves enough to fight for our health. But the tough thing about fighting is that sometimes we get tired of fighting. We get busy or sick. We’re exhausted, and then what? If the result of diminished vigilance is weight gain, it can be easy to get discouraged. I understand this. While my surgery didn’t result in weight gain, it resulted in diminished physical capabilities, and that has been discouraging, too. Many times in the last few months when I set out to do my runs on the Couch to 5K program, I thought to myself how much it sucked that I had to work so hard just to get back to the fitness level I’d had before. To be honest, if I hadn’t had roller derby as a motivator, it would have been a lot harder to convince myself that it was worth the effort.

The article is right. The things that are good for us are hard. But we’ve got to fight because, really, what we are fighting for is our lives. I used to work with senior citizens, and over and over again the healthiest, most active seniors told me they would never slow down of their own volition because when you slow down you die. My Uncle Larry says basically the same thing. When you think of it like that, what fight could be more important?

January Goals

2012-01-02T17:39:00.001Z

1. Run 30 minutes, three times a week.
2. Two strength training sessions per week.
3. Roller derby practice once a week.
4. Five fruits and vegetables per day.

I’ve focused a lot recently on goals for exercise, but I am very aware that the energy to accomplish the exercise needs to come from somewhere. To that end, I am tracking my calories carefully using the LoseIt app on my phone. I want to make sure I’m eating enough to fuel my workouts at the same time that I’m trying to lose those last fifteen pounds. I need to make every precious calorie count, and to that end, I am working really hard to get five fruits and vegetables per day. This is not easy for me. I don’t love vegetables. But I’m really going to focus on it in January. In fact, I started working on it in December, and I can honestly say I ate more spinach in that month than ever before in my life.

I want to highlight my way of thinking about diet-centered goals. My philosophy of losing weight has always been to avoid a mentality of scarcity. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve heard me say that I exercise so that I can eat more. It’s true. I want my life to have room for things like butter and dessert. I believe that depriving yourself of delicious foods for the sake of losing weight is unsustainable. So you’ll notice that this goal is not about cutting things out. It’s about adding more good things, in this case fruits and vegetables. I have no trouble getting protein in my diet. Almost all the grains I consume on a regular basis are whole grains. Fruits and vegetables are the last frontier.

Goals for 2012

2012-01-02T01:03:00.001Z

I’ve had some trouble finalizing my goals for 2012. The main challenge has been setting a goal for roller derby. The team I am skating with now has rules about trying out for other teams. These rules, along with the bond I have formed with my teammates, have caused me to consider the possibility of waiting another year to try out for the DC Rollergirls. I haven’t made a decision, but according to the rules of my team, I will need to do so by March. It’s a big decision, and I’m not taking it lightly. I plan to spend the next couple of months thinking carefully about what course of action is going to be best for me as a skater over the long term. But because I’m still deciding, I didn’t want to make trying out for DC one of my goals for the year. With that in mind, here are my fitness goals:

1. Jam at least once in a public roller derby bout. You know what? That’s the first time I’ve declared my desire to be a jammer. I’m still at a point in my skating development where I’ve got to work on the fundamentals of both blocking and jamming, but truly, jamming is what I love the most. So I’m just gonna say it. I want to be a jammer.

2. Lose 15 pounds and finally reach my weight loss goal after five long years.

3. Maintain the ability to run three miles three times per week.

This year, I also decided to set a bonus goal. Ever since I moved to DC two years ago, I’ve been saying I wanted to do this. This year, I’m putting it on the blog so I’ll be accountable for making it happen.

Bonus Goal: Take a lesson at trapeze school.

I have other goals for other parts of my life as well. For instance, I really want to get back to my poem a day project. However, the fitness goals are my top priority right now. One of the things I have come to understand about self-control over the years is that it is a finite resource. So for the first three months of the new year, fitness is going to be the focus. Come spring, I’ll reassess how I’m doing and work on some other areas.

2011: Finishing Strong

2011-12-31T21:54:00.000Z

I’ve been on vacation this week, and I wanted to push myself since I didn’t have many other commitments to take up time and energy, and I knew I would have plenty of free time to rest and recover. I think it was a solid effort and a strong finish in the last week of the year:

Monday: 30-minute run
Tuesday: 30 minute Pilates for Abs video
Wednesday: 30-minute run; 50 minute Roller Derby Workout video
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 30-minute run; 30 minute Yoga for Abs video
Saturday: Rest

Next week I plan to return to work and to roller derby practice, so I will dial this back a bit. I think my goal is going to be three runs and two strength training sessions (one of the videos above or weight lifting) per week. I also think I will stick with only one roller derby practice per week during the month of January. (This is mostly because our Wednesday practices are scrimmage practices and I’m still not cleared to scrimmage. It seems more efficient to use that time for exercising or resting, rather than trekking 2 hours round trip to sit on the sidelines.) Finally, I am declaring Saturday an official day of rest. One of the problems I was having before the holidays was that I would be so tired by Sunday that I couldn’t drag myself to practice. My hope is that I can do the running and strength training Monday through Friday, rest on Saturday, and have enough energy for that killer four-hour practice on Sunday.

2011 Review

2011-12-30T20:00:00.001Z

2011 was defined by recurrent bouts of diverticulitis, surgery to remove a section of my large intestine, and recovery from that surgery. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned, as you can see from my 2011 goals:

1. Try out for the DC Roller Girls.

2. Lose 33 lbs.

3. Maintain the ability to run at least 30 minutes without stopping or walking.

I came down with a bout of diverticulitis days before DC Roller Girls tryouts. Not only was I too sick to try out, I also realized that even if I made the cut, there was little likelihood that I would make it through twelve weeks of fresh meat training given that I had not had twelve consecutive healthy weeks for the previous eight months. This was a huge disappointment for me. I had surgery in August, and I’m still recovering. My biggest frustration has been at how long it takes to recover from surgery. After four and a half months, I still find myself more fatigued than I think I should be when I push myself too far with skating or other exercise. I had thought I would be back to 100 percent by now, but I’m not.

I lost 17 pounds this year. Not the 33 I had hoped for, but better than the 7 I gained in 2010. I would like to say that I lost these 17 pounds the way I lost the 33 that preceded them, through a healthy diet and exercise, but the truth is that I lost them because I couldn’t eat much of anything for a good part of the year. I have 15 more pounds to lose to hit my weight loss goal, which will put me in the “normal” Body Mass Index range for the first time since I was fourteen years old. (For you BMI skeptics, I share your skepticism. It’s true that the BMI is not the definitive measure of fitness. Indeed for a number of the years that I was in the “overweight” BMI category I was fairly fit and athletic. But it’s the measure I picked when I was setting my goal, and I’m going to stick to it.)

The one goal I actually met this year was Goal 3. In this, the last week of the year, I did three 30-minute runs. I worked back up to this slowly after surgery using the Couch to 5K running program over a thirteen week period.

Despite the frustrating setbacks of 2011, there were also a couple of shining moments. I wrote some poems for the first time in years. I skated in my first (and so far only) roller derby scrimmage. I posed nude and gained a brand new perspective on my body image. In short, I am on a path to becoming stronger and braver physically and emotionally, which is what my fitness journey has always been about.

Status Report

2011-12-20T02:08:00.003Z

I finished the Couch to 5K running program this morning. It took exactly thirteen weeks, longer than I had hoped given that it is supposed to be a nine week program. I got bogged down around Thanksgiving. I'm really not sure what hit me, but I have been exhausted the last few weeks. I stopped going to roller derby practice. I slept more than usual. And I really struggled to run even twice a week.

I am now 4.5 months out from surgery, and I am hoping that all of this is just part of the healing process. I am trying to be gentle with myself, to err on the side of caution, to be judicious about how much to push myself, and to rest when I'm tired.

My roller derby team had our holiday party last night, and I got the "Comeback of the Year" award, but my comeback so far has been decidedly anti-climactic, and I am not happy about it.

Here's the thing that really scares me: I am starting to worry that maybe I'm just not as strong as I think I am. What if this is simply as good as it gets? What if I am just destined to be tired and weak and sad all the time? I had been thinking that once the recurring bouts of diverticulitis were a thing of the past, I would feel better and have more energy. But what if I was wrong?

The holidays are coming. Roller derby is on hiatus for the next three weeks, and I am taking some vacation time. My plan is to keep up the running, add a bit of strength training, get lots of rest, and see how I feel three weeks from now.

On Posing Nude, Part 3

2011-12-17T01:44:00.004Z

As soon as I decided to do Shoot 150, I knew I would blog about it. I thought there would be value for other people, especially other women, to hear my reflections on the experience. There is one takeaway in particular that I want to share.

I wrote yesterday about how it felt to see myself through somebody else's lens, literally. I think there is so much value in that because it is so hard to change one's own lens. My old therapist used to talk about changing thought patterns. It is possible when you get into your old groove of negative thinking to have a rational internal dialogue with yourself that recognizes the destructive old pattern and attempts to deconstruct it with reason.

For example, I might catch myself thinking, "I'm so fat," but then I might remind myself that the way I think I look probably has more to do with my state of mind than anything else. I might say, "Remember those photos Geoffrey took? I looked so much better in them than I did in my head. I'm not fat. I'm beautiful."

I figure for most of us, those old constructs are too ingrained to ever get over entirely. But if we can't get over them, at least we can remind ourselves that they are, in fact, only constructs--not reality. Seeing Geoffrey's photos helps me remember that.

Not every woman is going to get the chance to pose nude. Not every woman is going to WANT to pose nude. But if you are a woman reading this, here is what I want you to take away from my experience:

A guy I'd never met walked into my apartment with a camera. He had no fancy lights or lenses or special effects. And he found beauty in me.

Imagine what the people who actually know and love us must see when they look at us. The women who watch me struggle to become a better derby skater. The colleagues who listen to me speak with intelligence and passion about work that matters to me. The friends who laugh at my jokes. The people who read this blog.

Now think about what your friends and colleagues and lovers and neighbors must see when they look at you. You are so much more than any one image could ever be. I have no doubt you are beautiful. I hope you believe that you are.

On Posing Nude, Part 2

2011-12-16T05:24:00.002Z

I kept worrying that Geoffrey would come to his senses and realize he’d made a mistake. I worried that he’d cancel or not show up. I was his last of three shoots in DC over a three day period. Maybe the other two women would be so great he would decide he didn’t want to bother with little old me after all.

Even worse, I worried he would take all those photos and there wouldn’t be a single good one, and I would be forced to confront that nagging voice in the back of my mind that had been telling me all along I wasn’t good enough for this project. What if I was the first woman out of more than a hundred who turned out to be a dud?

Geoffrey said, “Ok, it’s pretty simple. You get naked, and we’ll get started.”

Like so many other things in life, it was all the thinking leading up to it that was the hard part. Once the clothes came off, it was surprisingly easy. I just trusted Geoff to be a professional. I did what he told me and hoped it would all turn out ok.

And it did, as you can see here.

Yesterday I said I wanted to see what I would learn about myself from posing nude and whether seeing myself through Geoffrey’s lens would change the way I feel about my body.

So what did I learn? Quite simply that I’m braver and more confident and more comfortable in my body than ever before. If someone had asked me to pose nude at 20 years old, there is no way in hell I would have done it. I guess this is what people mean when they talk about getting more comfortable in your skin as you get older. I can’t believe I wasted all the cuteness of my youth because I was too busy feeling bad about myself.

And what was it like to see myself through the lens of an artist? Well, it wasn’t all roses. I’m not gonna lie, with every single photo the first place my eyes went was straight to my midsection, and my first thought every single time was whether or not I looked fat. And there were definitely some photos I didn’t love.

But the thing is, there are also some that are stunning. Truly, I was stunned in a couple of instances to realize that the beautiful girl looking out of the frame was me. The image I have of myself in my head has never once matched the image I see in some of these photos. Seeing them, I understand why Geoffrey picked me. I do deserve a place among the beautiful women in this project.

I love how I look in some of these photos, but there is one thing I love even more.

In the days leading up to this photo shoot, my thoughts kept returning to a workshop I attended when I was in my twenties. The facilitator told me to close my eyes and picture my teenage self and think about what I wanted to tell her. All these years later, I know what my teenage self most needed to hear was simply, “You are good enough.” It took me years to be able to hear that message.

Looking at these photos makes me wonder what my 45, or 55, or 85 year old self will want to say to me one day. I look at these photos and see a brave girl who is doing the best she can, who is living her life on her own terms, who doesn’t know what will happen next, and who has many amazing lessons left to learn. What could be more beautiful than that?

On Posing Nude, Part 1

2011-12-14T23:09:00.002Z

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a photographer I had never met, Geoffrey W. Greer, inviting me to participate in his nude photo series, Shoot 150. When you are a 5’3” just-under-plus-sized woman, this is not the sort of invitation you expect to receive. At least I didn’t. My first thought was that it had to be a scam. Because why, out of all the beautiful women in DC, would this guy ask me to pose for him?

Geoffrey described his project as “all about beauty, sexuality and women in their real homes and real environments...an attempt to remove artifice and shoot something a bit more reflective of reality.” He wrote that he had done 131 shoots since March 2008 and said, “Each shoot has been fun, unique and most importantly produced work that everyone involved has been very proud of.”

Despite my skepticism, I liked the description of the project. It seemed like something I could get behind—exploring the beauty of real women in their real environments. I went to the website and fell in love with the photos and the diverse visual stories they capture.

Then the body image issues kicked in. Did I really believe I deserved a place in Geoffrey’s Pantheon of 150 Goddesses?

I wrestled with this question for a long time. My body image right now is better than it has been at any other point in my life, thanks to a lot of hard emotional work over the last several years, but is it really good enough that I could be comfortable posing nude?

Here’s why I decided to do it: I thought it would be an interesting body image challenge. What would I learn about myself from the process? And even more important, how might my body image change given the chance to see myself through the lens of an artist rather than through the same tired lens of my own doubts and insecurities? I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

So I checked references and took safety precautions, and this morning I opened the door of my apartment to a man I’d never met, and I took off my clothes.

Thanksgiving Check-In

2011-11-24T19:09:00.003Z

A year ago today I ran my first (and so far only) 5K. What’s on my mind today is whether I’ve made any progress, fitness-wise, since this time last year.

Here’s where I am:

I’m on Week 7 of the Couch to 5K program. I’m a little behind schedule since I started it ten weeks ago, but I’m doing ok. I’m confident that I can complete it on time even though my last few runs have not been easy.

I’m back at roller derby, part-time. I decided I would only go once a week for awhile to ease into things, and I’ve been to two practices so far. My first night back was a four-hour practice. I did the first two hours and then stopped. I felt ok, but I was really worried about how I would feel the next day. I had visions of waking up in the night with massive abdominal pain. Fortunately, this didn’t happen. In fact, I didn’t feel any worse than I did when I first started roller derby and had to get myself in shape for the sport. So that was encouraging. I did a little more at the second practice, about 2.5 hours. I would have done 3 hours except I had a little collision with one of our refs—he accidentally elbowed me in the face, and I twisted my knee a little when I fell. So I ended up icing my face and my knee for 30 minutes or so, and then the last hour of practice was hitting drills, which I can’t do yet.

It feels good to be back. It turns out that all my worries were unfounded. I started slow. I listened to my body. And everything was fine. Like so many other times in my life, the biggest obstacles were all in my head.

Nevertheless, I’m still not one hundred percent. I still find myself exhausted a lot of the time. I am really hoping this won’t be the case at some point. And I still have plenty of work to do, derby-wise. I’ve got to get myself cleared for hitting, and I’ve got to get myself back to two practices a week. It will happen.

Remembering M.

2011-11-23T21:08:00.001Z

The first boy I loved, M., would have been 37 years old yesterday. I think of him often, especially at this time of year. We were exactly the same age—our birthdays were only four days apart. (Mine was last Friday.) We only spoke once or twice after high school—two whole decades ago now—but I have thought of him often over the years, the one who got away. He was a beautiful boy.

I came home to Maine for Thanksgiving this year. I got up and went for a run yesterday morning. My nephew slept over last night. My dad and I baked an apple pie today. I am healthy and happy, surrounded by natural beauty and the love of my favorite people. But M. is on my mind, and I can’t stop thinking about the unfairness of life.

I came across this post the other day and thought I would write one of my own outlining all the things I love about my body. But more than that, what I want to say today, what I am most thankful for today, is simply that I am here. Even when life is hard, or sad, or lonely, I get to be here. The older I get and the harder I work not to numb my fears and feelings, the better I get at being here.

I do love my body. I love the strong legs that propel me around the roller derby track, the sexy ankles, the curves, the softness, the fingernails I finally stopped biting, the blue eyes that win me compliments, the collarbone that wasn’t visible when I was heavier, the literal and figurative strength of my heart, the sharp mind of a poet and social scientist. But what I love most about my body is that it is strong and healthy and fit enough to let me live my life to the fullest. And that is truly something to be thankful for.

November Goals

2011-11-01T00:45:00.002Z

These are my goals for November:

Finish the Couch to 5K Running Program. I'm currently on Week 6. I know from experience that Weeks 5 and 6 are the hardest. Just like the last time I did this program, I am telling myself that if I can push through these two weeks, I can finish the program.

Attend roller derby practice once a week. I'm going back to roller derby practice on Wednesday. I'm nervous about it. It's been five months since I skated. I know I'll remember how, but I'm worried my skills will have gotten a lot worse.

3. Track calories using LoseIt. My diet has been a little bit atrocious lately. I think it is the change in the weather--I'm craving comfort food all the time. I am happy to report, though, that I went shopping over the weekend and for the first time in my whole entire life, I got into a size ten skirt. This despite the fact that I've gained back four of the pounds I lost after surgery. Still, I need to eat a little more carefully if I ever want to get into a size ten again.

Progress Report

2011-11-01T00:33:00.002Z

It has been eleven weeks since my surgery, and I am finally ready to return to roller derby practice! Technically, I could have gone back to practice at eight weeks, but I was tired and nervous and wanted to wait a little longer and see my primary care doctor. Here is what the doctor said:

1. Skating and falling is unlikely to hurt me at this point. There is still a risk of hernia because of the weakened abdominal wall, but core exercises shouldn't pose much of a risk.

2. I should start slowly and not push myself too much. When I told her that I'm still tired a lot of the time, she told me that I won't be fully healed for a full six months. I asked her how to know how much to push myself. She said if I'm in pain, I should stop. I guess she meant the bad kind of pain, not the normal roller derby kind of pain. I guess that's a reasonable indicator.

3. I shouldn't do any hitting for at least another month, and after that I should start with less than full force hitting.

I'm going back to practice on Wednesday night, but I've decided that for the first month I'm only going to go once a week. I think that's a reasonable way to ease back into things. At the same time, I'll be finishing up the Couch to 5K running program again. I should be getting back into somewhat decent shape by the beginning of December, and I'll see how I feel then.

Two Year Anniversary

2011-10-25T03:44:00.001+01:00

October marks my two-year anniversary in DC. I have been happy here, but the transition to a new life in a new city wasn’t easy. There were the predictable logistics challenges—learning how to get around, developing a daily routine, and so on. I had some challenges adjusting to my new job and have only felt within the last few months that I’ve finally come into my own work-wise. Finally, there was the social challenge of meeting new people in a city where I knew practically no one. There was a lot of loneliness in these last two years.

In spite of all this, amazing things have happened, and the most amazing thing that happened to me was roller derby. I’ve said it repeatedly on this blog—I never thought I’d have another chance to play a competitive sport after college, and roller derby has given me that chance. It has also given me a network of some of the most incredible women in the DC metro area.

My team, the Black-Eyed Suzies, had our first ever bout on October 1st, and it was beautiful to behold. I couldn’t skate because I am still recovering from surgery, but I cheered myself hoarse from the sidelines.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that even though I was excited and proud of my teammates, I was really sad not to be able to skate, and the competitor in me is really concerned that everyone’s skills have so surpassed my own that I’m never going to catch back up.

I hate that feeling. It’s hard for me to face that feeling. I am used to being good at the things I do—work, sports, whatever. When I started skating, I could embrace my ineptitude by reminding myself I was new, and it helped that I picked up the basics fairly quickly. But now I feel like I have been skating FOREVER and have not made the progress I should have. My team has had two entire classes of fresh meat since I joined, and some of those women were skating in the bout while I’m still on the sidelines.

The only thing that is helping me deal with this feeling right now is thinking about my two year anniversary. Two years ago I moved to this town, and I did not know how to roller skate. It was January 2010 when I had my first skating lesson. A month later, I had my first case of diverticulitis. I’ve been skating less than two years and during that time I’ve taken at least eight months off due to illness. So I guess I’m not doing too badly. Even more importantly, before too long (I hope), I will be healed and ready to see what it’s like to skate while I’m healthy. I can’t wait.

My Friend, the Marathoner

2011-10-19T01:28:00.001+01:00

My friend Sarah ran a marathon last weekend. I love the photos in her blog post about it. If you want to see what a joyful athlete looks like, look no further.

Shame and Communication

2011-10-13T02:47:00.005+01:00

Today I went to a talk by Deborah Tannen, a linguist who has written a number of bestselling books on topics such as gender differences in communication. She told a story about a man who wrote to her with the question, "Why do the women I work with think I don't have a right to walk down the hallway?"

Tannen said she called the man and asked him more about the situation. He explained that whenever he happened to pass a group of women chatting in the hallway, the women would stop talking and watch him as he passed. Tannen explained that women tend to share personal information as a way of building intimacy. If a group of women were engaged in a personal conversation in the hall, it would feel natural to them to break off when someone else, who in this case happened to be male, walked by.

Tannen noted that in addition to pointing out a difference in communication styles, this story also illustrates how quickly people are to assume negative motives in others and to take personally things that are not personal at all.

This resonated with the thinking I've been doing recently on shame.

A couple of years ago I did some reading on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). The root of clinical narcissism is shame. We think of narcissists as being vain and self-centered, but the truth is that the self-centeredness actually comes from the narcissist's deep belief that he or she is not good enough.

I think the general principle holds even for those of us who are not clinical narcissists. If we believe there is something deeply wrong with us, if we live in fear that the people around us are going to discover this deep flaw sooner or later, then we are primed to interpret the innocent actions of other people in a way that reinforces our own insecurities.

While waiting for the talk to begin, I happened to mention to my friends that my ex-mother-in-law once bought me a copy of Tannen's book on mother/daughter communication because she thought I needed to get better at communicating with my mother. One friend observed, "that says more about your mother-in-law than it does about you." Indeed. And likewise, the way we perceive other people says way more about us than it does about them. The next time I'm quick to judge someone, I'm going to ask myself why.

Addiction, Trauma and Shame

2011-10-11T00:31:00.001+01:00

I went on a date this weekend. When I asked my date what he did in his free time, he told me he is an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. So I asked him what he learned about himself in recovery. It was kind of a heavy question, but he took it in stride and we had an interesting conversation. He talked about the “trauma of addiction,” which was not a phrase I’d heard before.

I’d never thought about addiction quite like that, but it makes sense. I thought of my sister, who works in behavioral health, telling me about how children who are raised in traumatic circumstances grow up to create that kind of drama in their own lives because it is what makes them feel most comfortable. It’s ironic and sad—you pursue an addictive behavior to numb some other trauma that you’ve had, only to wind up in the middle of a different kind of trauma, this time one of your own making.

I told him I thought I could understand a little bit about recovery, and then I did something I never do. I told my date I used to be fat. I guess I just figured that he had been open with me, and we were talking about all the things I talk about on this blog—learning to be honest with yourself, learning to feel your own pain—so it felt safe enough to tell him. But the discomfort I felt talking about it with him made me think. Why don’t I talk about this with the people in my life, except on this blog?

The answer is shame.

Why do I feel shame because I used to be fat? I should be proud to have gotten healthier and slimmer. I should be proud of myself. And most of the time I am, but there is a part of me that doesn’t want anyone to know about that old me. I don’t ever talk about it with my friends—unless they happen to read this blog and find out that way. Before my date on Saturday, I had only told one other man in the last two years and that was only because he used to be fat, too, and it came up in much the same way it did this weekend.

I guess that fat girl represents the part of me that still doesn’t feel good enough. She was a mess. She was weak. She was a failure. And she is still part of me, no matter what. If people know about her, will they think differently about me now? I guess I worry that they will.

I posted this amazing video about shame last week. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should.

Shame and Invisibility

2011-10-07T01:33:00.003+01:00

This woman sums up in twenty minutes what I have spent the last three years writing about on this blog. Amazing.

Week One, Down

2011-09-26T02:39:00.005+01:00

I successfully completed Week 1 of the Couch to 5K running program. Even better, I am in the process of establishing a nice little morning routine: Up at 6:00. Breakfast, coffee and reading until about 6:45. Out the door by 7:00. Exercise. Home and in the shower by 8:00. Out the door by 8:45 to catch the bus to work.

I'm not a morning person. Here's what is making the morning routine work: Sleep and breakfast. I am in bed every night by 11:00 am, and I haven't allowed myself to sleep in for the last three weekends. The not sleeping in is key--it's what all the sleep experts tell you. I don't know if it's sustainable, though, since sometimes you just want to stay up late. We'll see.

Then there's breakfast, which is actually all about the coffee. All the other times in my life when I've tried to get up early and exercise, I haven't had my coffee and breakfast first. I simply need some time in the morning to sip my coffee and get ready to face the day. You have no idea (or maybe you do) how much easier it is to get out of bed at 6:00 am when you know you can sit on the couch and have some coffee before you have to deal with anything else, especially running.

Since my surgery, I've noticed that I don't feel like eating in the morning, which is strange. I've always been a breakfast eater--it's the most important meal of the day! Now I eat my breakfast in stages--a bowl of cereal while I wait for the coffee to be ready, and a Greek yogurt when I get back from exercising. You're supposed to have protein and carbs after exercise so Greek yogurt seems ideal.

This week I did the Couch to 5K program on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I walked on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I think walking on the off days also helps with consistency. Even though I'm not running on those days, it feels like I'm following a routine, and the routine is to put my sneakers on and get out the door. Plus, walking is good for me too.

In other news this week, I went shopping today. I have a little problem because my clothes are too big for me, and I have no money. Like just about any person who ever lost and regained weight, I don't quite trust I'll keep it off. So I don't want to get too many new clothes or spend money to get my good things tailored yet. Today I went looking for a few things to hold me until I feel certain the surgery weight loss will be permanent. I went to about a million stores and tried on about a million things, and it's official: I am now an honest to goodness size 12. (Down from a size 20 in 2007.) Want to know a secret? I haven't been a size 12 since I was in the eighth grade. Hello, size 12. I've missed you.

What the Average American Eats in a Year

2011-09-23T03:03:00.004+01:00

From Daily Infographic:

I am fascinated by this graphic. The proportion of fruits and vegetables was actually higher than I would have expected, although half the vegetable section is probably ketchup and potatoes. I'm pretty sure I eat less red meat and chicken than the average American, but I'd be willing to bet I also eat fewer fruits and vegetables. If I had to guess, I think the dairy and wheat sections would be bigger on my personal consumption chart. On the bright side, I drink virtually no soda at all. And, my weight is below average, not that that's much of an accomplishment considering I'm not exactly skinny. Oh, America, you are a fascinating land!

Wild Flag: Music to be Empowered By

2011-09-23T02:16:00.005+01:00

Wild Flag is the all-female supergroup composed of Carrie Brownstein, Rebecca Cole, Mary Timony and Janet Weiss. I have been listening to their new album all week because it is so good I can't stop. And all I can think while I am listening is that if this album were a sport, it would be roller derby.

The music is sexy and badass, fearless and flawlessly feminine. Forget the JCPenney and Forever21 t-shirt debacles. If you want the little girl in your life to celebrate the awesomeness of being female, get her a copy of this album. And maybe a pair of fishnets.

The Plan

2011-09-18T15:22:00.001+01:00

I mentioned in my last post that I had gotten up at 6:00 am on Monday morning to walk to the Capitol, a distance of 3.2 miles round trip from my apartment. It was the furthest I’d walked since my surgery, and it felt good. Now that I’m feeling better, it’s time to start thinking about a plan to regain my aerobic fitness. To that end, I am going to restart the Couch to 5K program. Tomorrow morning.

Unlike the last couple of times I lapsed from the program and started up again around Week 5, this time I’m going to start back at Week 1. In Week 1, you only have to run for 90 seconds at a time. Even after surgery and more than three months of not running, this should be fairly easy. I’ll work my way up slowly while my body continues to heal.

Now that the worst of the DC summer weather has passed us, I’ll be able to run outside. I’m going to run the route between my apartment and the Capitol, which excites me for a couple of reasons. First of all, I like the idea of starting out running parts of the route and walking the rest, and then slowly working up to running the whole route, which is almost exactly 5K. Second, how motivating is it when your destination is a building as grand and inspiring as the U.S. Capitol. Not everyone gets that kind of scenery when they run.

I’m hoping that before winter arrives and drives me indoors for my runs, I’ll be able to work up to running the whole 3.2 miles, but I have no idea how long it will take me to complete the program this time. You may recall, it’s supposed to be a nine week program, but it took me nine months to finish the first time I did it back in 2008. I’ll do the best I can and see how my body takes it.

September is Tough

2011-09-13T03:09:00.002+01:00

September is a tough month for me. It is the month my ex-husband and I had our first date and the month we got married seven years after that date. When I began to feel dissatisfied with being married, September was the month I went off to visit business schools. I thought if I could just go away to business school and have two years to live by myself, maybe that would be enough and I could somehow manage to stay married for the rest of my life. Not very realistic, I now realize.

This September is the worst one in awhile. Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I started thinking about where I was on 9/11. I was in New Hampshire at a conference. When I heard the news, the only thing I could think about was driving back to Maine to see my husband. I thought about that a lot yesterday. I thought about how much I loved my husband on that day, and how the lesson of 9/11 should have been to hold onto those feelings no matter what. And I didn't learn it.

In addition to all this emotional baggage, I am still recovering from surgery. I am feeling better every day but trying not to push it. This morning I got up at 6:00 am (early for me) and went for a walk to the Capitol. It is 3.2 miles round trip, the furthest I have walked since surgery.

I got back home and did a few stretches. I am a fairly flexible person, but my leg muscles were pretty tight and my flexibility was not as good as usual. But when I thought about how painful it was to walk a lap or two in the hospital corridor in the days following surgery, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this body of mine, which is resilient and fairly healthy considering everything it's been through.

When I started applying to business schools, I was concerned that they didn't accept fat people. I'm still not convinced that they do. The first time I went to visit Columbia, which was my top choice, I bought a t-shirt in the gift shop--one of those baby tees meant to be tight fitting on a woman, size XL. It was too small for me, and I used to fantasize about being skinny enough to wear it by the time I got to Columbia. Of course, I never made it to business school. But I can wear the t-shirt now. I put it on this morning for my walk, a bit defiantly since it is a badge for my failure. But it's also a symbol of resiliency. I found another path, and here I am strolling in the shadow of the Capitol.

The truth about 9/11 is this: we can't wrap our minds around the big lessons for very long. We revisit them from time to time when grief overcomes us, when there's an anniversary or something else to trigger us. The rest of the time, we go around worrying about whether we are skinny enough to wear a stupid t-shirt. It's not our fault. It's how we're wired.

But maybe it's the small changes that make the difference in the end. I think about all the ways I've learned to love and accept myself over the last couple of years, and I know that this growth in me will make it possible for me to do a better job of loving somebody else the next time I have the chance. Maybe that's the best I can hope for.

Surgery Disrupts Some Bad Habits, Not Others

2011-09-04T18:06:00.002+01:00

After ten days in the hospital, I hadn't had a drop of caffeine and was well over my caffeine withdrawal. I thought I might take advantage of this auspicious state of affairs to swear off caffeine altogether. But then I got home, and for about ten days I started each morning with a cup of decaf, but something was lacking in my morning ritual, one of the few sacred moments of my daily routine. I went back to the caffeine.

I did stop biting my nails, a habit I had for most of my life, dropped when I was going around to business school interviews and wanted to look put-together, and then resumed amid the stress of divorce, moving to DC and working a demanding job. My nails are looking quite lovely now, and I will try to keep them that way.

In other news of surgery, I lost ten pounds while in the hospital, bringing my weight loss total to 54 pounds. All the weight I have lost in 2011 was the result of sickness or surgery. I feel like a little bit of a cheat because of that, but then I think about all the workout time being sick cheated me out of and think maybe we're even. Still, the hospital diet really sucks. I do not recommend it.

Finally, on Friday I went to Fatty's, the Dupont Circle tattoo shop where I had my piercing removed for surgery, and got the piercing put back in. The hole had gotten quite a bit smaller, so this process was not without discomfort, but it was a small price to pay. I felt naked and not myself without that piercing. Getting it put back in was an important milestone in getting back to feeling like myself again.

Surgery and Depression

2011-09-02T17:03:00.003+01:00

I've been feeling a bit depressed for several days, but it has been especially bad the last few since my dad, who had come to town to take care of me, went home. Last night while lying in bed trying to sleep, I finally googled "surgery and depression" and found this article. I actually cried while reading it, mostly from the relief of knowing that the way I have been feeling might actually be normal.

My google search also led me to the website of, believe it or not, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, who had this to say:

The number one reason for depression is usually the adrenaline period is now over, also known as the "Surgical Let Down Period". Imagine that you are expecting something that you have anticipated and you are just so emotionally and mentally excited as well as the physical adrenaline rush you are receiving from it all. Just when are starting to believe all is going to be wonderful and you think as soon as your surgery is over your face will be that as you desired it. The bandages and sutures are removed and well, you may not look much different. In fact, you are bruised swollen, uncomfortable and you feel the same except you have no bandages and you have less money in the bank. What gives?

Well, I didn't have cosmetic surgery, and my face is fine of course, but I understand this feeling of being let down. I guess if you've never had a major surgery--and I had not--it's hard to understand the healing process. Physical pain, even when it's well-controlled, wears you down slowly. I'm at a point in my healing where about ninety percent of what I feel can't even be described as "pain" so much as "discomfort," but I feel weakened and susceptible. I feel less able to deal with the discomfort because I'm worn out from the pain I felt earlier in the process. Plus, I feel disappointed because surgery was supposed to make me better, and I didn't expect to still be feeling crappy three weeks out, and I don't know when I'm going to feel like my old self again.

I write a lot on this blog about learning to feel emotional pain, learning not to fear facing it. I have had less experience with physical pain. I'm sure the parallels are obvious. I would attempt to explore them if I didn't feel so rotten, but today I'll leave that task up to you.

I think I'm going to be fine. I've seen many depressed people in my life, and I don't believe I'm so far down the hole that I need professional help. It helped to read those websites last night. It helped to write this. It helps to know that even though I don't feel like it, I'll be going back to work next week and then I will be busier and less isolated. Eventually my body will catch up to my expectations for it. I'll be fine.

I'm Too Pretty for Your Bullshit

2011-09-01T17:42:00.002+01:00

My first thought when I read about JCPenney's "I'm too pretty to do homework" t-shirt gaffe was, how does this stuff keep happening? Has nothing changed in the nearly 20 years since the "math is hard" Barbie came out? Twenty years and a whole new generation of utterly clueless executives. I don't understand it.

Recovery

2011-08-25T16:18:00.002+01:00

I went for a follow-up with the surgeon yesterday. We talked about the timeline for recovery.

He told me I could resume a regular diet now if I want. I find that kind of hard to believe. They just cut out a piece of my intestines two weeks ago, and I should go back to a high fiber diet? I gave him the benefit of the the doubt. I ate a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast this morning--a medium fiber food. I got a stomach ache. Thanks, surgeon.

We also talked about exercise. He told me I could start running as soon as I feel up to it. He implied I could go for a jog this week if I wanted to, sort of like the fiber thing. Given that I'm still taking pain pills every six hours, I don't think I'll be running for awhile. But I guess when I am feeling better, that will be my first fitness activity.

Then we talked about roller derby. The timeline here is less clear. He said I cannot do any core exercises for at least two months. After two months he thought it would be ok, but he also said that it will take six months for the abdominal wall to heal completely. So here's what I don't understand: What am I supposed to do between the two month and six month mark? How much can I actually do?

Also, it is hard for me to figure out how I get back to the point where I would go back to roller derby practice, which is basically an endless core workout that often begins with triple digits of crunches, planks and other ab exercises. I mean, two months out from surgery, it seems unlikely that I'm going to walk right back into roller derby practice and throw myself on the floor to do some ab work. So I don't understand how to work up to that, or what sort of pace I should have, or how long it is going to take.

I really didn't realize until I woke up from surgery with this incision how serious this was all going to be and how hard it was going to be to recover. I heard "two months" from the surgeon when we spoke before surgery and figured I'd be back at practice in two months.

It's sad and scary. My team is going to be having its first bout at the beginning of October, and I won't be able to join them. Six months puts me into February. I know part of this is just the emotional aftermath of surgery--feeling weak and sick and helpless and drugged up--but I just feel a little hopeless about roller derby right now.

Hunger is a Gift

2011-08-22T21:16:00.003+01:00

I made it through surgery and a slightly longer than expected hospital stay--nine nights and ten days. I developed an infection around the incision so the last few days were spent getting IV antibiotics. The doctors sent me home on Saturday with pain pills and more antibiotics. Hopefully the worst is over.

The hospital stay was as miserable as I had expected it to be. (Have I mentioned how much I hate hospitals?) Nevertheless, I am out now.

Should you be tempted to think I'm exaggerating, take a look at what four unsuccessful attempts to start an IV will do to a person. And that was like, number 5 on the list of miserable things that happened to me.

Here is the one useful observation I gleaned from my hospital stay. After days and days on a liquid diet, I finally got the go-ahead to upgrade to a low-residue diet of soft foods like pasta and white bread. About two meals into the low-residue diet,I began to feel my appetite come back. Up until then, I hadn't even cared that all I could eat was jello because I felt too crappy to care about eating anything. But as I started to feel better, my appetite began to come back.

I spend a lot of time fighting hunger like it is a mortal enemy. It's important to remember that hunger is a gift. It's a healthy body's mechanism for reminding us when fuel is necessary. Nothing less, nothing more. It's our responsibility to feed our hunger responsibly.

Surgery

2011-08-09T14:56:00.003+01:00

I realize I haven't actually explained what this surgery of mine is all about.

Diverticulitis is an infection in the intestines. The basic idea is that if one section of the intestine keeps getting infected, you remove that section and all will be well. To that end, I am having a laparascopic partial colectomy, which is a fancy way of saying that the surgeon is going to remove a section of my large intestine and sew the rest of it back together.

All the usual risks apply to my surgery--general anesthesia, infection. The other risk is leaks. Think about it--the doctor is cutting open the dirtiest part of your body. If he doesn't get it sewn back together quite right there is potential for all that nastiness to leak out into the rest of your body.

That's what happened to my dad. The surgery that nearly killed him was similar but not the same. His diverticulitis was on his esophagus rather than his intestines. He had a piece of his esophagus removed, and his procedure was much more invasive because it was not done laparascopically. But it wasn't the invasive nature of the surgery that nearly killed him--it was a leak. About 36 hours after he came out of surgery he spiked a fever. The leak was discovered and he had to go back into surgery to repair it. The result of all this was sepsis, a systemic infection which kills about a third of its victims. My dad was part of the lucky two-thirds.

But I'm trying not to think about any of that today. I am reminding myself that I'll be having this surgery at one of the best hospitals in the country. I'm younger and healthier than my dad. The surgery is less invasive, and it's what I need to get my life back.

Today I'm doing my prep. Cleansing, as the euphemism goes. My dad arrived last night--he's here for two weeks to take care of me while I recover, just like I took care of him. I am thinking back to that feeling I had at the first of the year and telling myself that everything will be allright.

Small Changes: Sleep

2011-08-09T14:21:00.002+01:00

For two months I have done little exercise except walking in an effort not to stress my body until I can get this surgery over with. For two weeks I have eaten gluttonously in anticipation of not being able to eat much of anything while I recover. Despite falling off the wagon in these areas, I did manage to make one small but healthy change.

For years I have taken benadryl at night to go to sleep. I started this habit back in the days before I got my sinus problems under control--I took sudafed every morning and night, and it kept me awake so I started taking benadyrl to conk me out. I've been off the sudafed for two or three years now, but I still couldn't get to sleep at a reasonable hour without the benadryl.

My sleep schedule was also a mess. On weeknights, I'd take a benadyrl and go to bed somewhere between 11:00 and midnight, dragging myself out of bed at 7:00 am. On weekends I might stay up much later and sleep until as late as noon. Come Sunday night, even with benadryl it was often hard to fall asleep.

A few weeks ago I just decided to stop taking the benadryl, but I knew that in order to have any hope of getting to sleep at a reasonable time of night without it, I was going to have to work on my sleep schedule. So for three weeks, I got up at 7:00 every weekday morning and no later than 8:00 am on the weekends. Occasionally I took a weekend nap to catch up on a little extra sleep, but never more than 30 or 40 minutes. Here's what happened:

Mornings--while never easy for someone who is not naturally a morning person--got considerably easier. I found that I was much less groggy in the mornings when I didn't have benadryl in my system.

It got easier to get to bed at night, too. I got into a rhythm where I started to feel naturally sleepy around 11:00 or 12:00.

A couple of other factors played into this change. First, I limited my coffee intake. I had my usual 16 ounces first thing in the morning, but I stopped drinking the cup I had gotten used to drinking around 10:00 am. I did not drink any caffeine after noon.

Second, I started reading almost every night before bed. Since I moved to my new apartment, I haven't had cable television. I've been reading more without tv to distract me. By 9:00 or 10:00 most nights I'm curled up with a book. I think this helps me wind down.

Finally, I started waking up to natural light in my bedroom. My old apartment had blinds that made the room almost completely dark. In my new apartment, I can actually tell when it's morning.

I know my schedule will be a mess in the aftermath of surgery--I expect to be taking delicious pain pills and sleeping all the time. But once I'm better, I hope to return to a more sane sleep schedule. It may be harder than it has been these last few weeks since once I am feeling better, I will probably want to get back to having some late weekend nights. And once I get back to roller derby, that will keep me up late a couple nights a week--I often don't get home from practice until after 11:00 pm and am so wired I can't sleep for hours.

At least now I know it is possible to be more intentional about sleep. So we'll see what happens.

Fitness Roundup

2011-08-04T01:17:00.003+01:00

More life lessons from roller derby: Never skate with scissors.

Ida Keeling, America's oldest sprinter.

My Black Eyed Suzies in the news.

Lament for My Piercing

2011-08-02T00:15:00.004+01:00

I got my clitoral hood pierced when I was twenty-one years old. I haven't removed the piercing once in the last fifteen years, but I have to take it out for my surgery next week. This piercing is such an integral part of my body image that to take it out feels like a really big deal.

I don't even know how to take it out. Let alone get it back in once it's out. I don't know if it will even go back in without having to get it pierced again. To get answers to these questions, I texted the professional body piercer I used to date. This was kind of a bummer, since he is the guy who broke up with me in the middle of the night back in June, but he was kind enough to answer my questions despite never wanting to see me again.

The good news: I can go to any piercer and get it taken out. And given that I've had the piercing so long, a piercer might be able to put it back in for me without any more needle action. Key word being "might." And that's the bad news: there's no guarantee that the piercing will stay open long enough for me to get it put back in. Which means, if I want my piercing back, I might have to get pierced again. I gotta say, I'm not sure I'm brave enough anymore to do that again.

So today I've been lamenting the possible loss of my piercing. I want to talk about why it means so much to me.

The decision to pierce my genitals was about claiming my body and my pleasure. I believed if you loved your body you should decorate it, and if a metal ring would make your orgasm better, you sure as hell should get one. It felt like such a brave and powerful act to me. In some ways the piercing felt like a charm or a talisman of sorts. I believed it was emblematic of the life of wild adventure I was destined to lead.

As readers of this blog are aware, the rest of my twenties and early thirties were not exactly filled with wild adventure. I lost my nerve in so many ways, and my body felt lost to me as well. Except, the piercing was always there. It reminded me of the kind of woman I used to be. Sometimes I didn't relish being reminded--I was certain I'd never be that woman again, and it made me sad. But the piercing was tangible proof of who I had been once, and because the physical pleasure it brought was always there even when I was in a body I hated, in some ways it was a physical link to the body I'd once had.

Since the end of my marriage, the piercing has become even more integral to my sexuality. I like having a dirty little secret under my librarian-esque exterior, and it is always an interesting moment to see the reaction of a new partner. It is a rare man who doesn't remark upon its discovery in some way, and the nature of the remark can be telling.

The possibility of giving up the piercing--if I can't get it back in and can't bring myself to submit to getting pierced again--makes me incredibly sad. Out of all the losses I am feeling right now because of surgery--the loss of my summer (and the vacation I had hoped to take in August), the loss of professional opportunities while I'm out of work, the loss of so much roller derby practice time--this one feels the hardest because it could be permanent.

I don't know who I am, sexually, without this piercing. Maybe it sounds melodramatic to say that, but it's true. I'm really having a hard time with this.

Faith and Gentleness

2011-07-04T21:17:00.002+01:00

Back in January, on New Year's Day, I had the strangest feeling. I wrote about it elsewhere, mentioned it to friends, and have thought about it periodically over the last six months. It was a feeling of calm unlike anything I'd experienced before, and an overwhelming certainty that everything in my life was exactly as it was supposed to be and that everything would turn out ok. I'm not, generally, an optimistic person. So to feel that strongly that everything will be fine was rather novel.

Over the last few months as disappointments and stresses came up, I would think back to New Year's Day and check in with myself. And every time I did, I'd be surprised to discover that I still believed everything would work out. Nothing in my life has felt insurmountable.

I don't know what to call this feeling, but I think it might be faith--perhaps some combination of faith in the universe and my own resiliency.

It has, nevertheless, been a tough six months. The last month, especially, has been rough. To recap, I missed DC Roller Girls tryouts, went on two business trips while sick with diverticulitis, moved across town to a new apartment, and got dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the night by a guy I really liked. (Yes, there's quite a story behind that last item, but I won't be telling it on this blog.)

Yesterday I finally unpacked the last box in my apartment, and today I have been doing nothing. Remember my year of doing nothing? Today I was thinking about the lessons I learned from that. Now I seem to be back in a place where I need to rest and be gentle with myself and take a little time to heal. So that's what I'm going to do.

I have a colonoscopy scheduled for Friday, and after that most likely comes surgery. I have been eating a low residue diet that leaves me with little energy. I have taken a break from skating and running in an attempt to go easy on myself until it's time for surgery. I'm tired, and it makes me sad not to be using my body to its full potential. I also feel afraid about what surgery will do to me, how far it will set me back with my fitness goals, not to mention my roller derby goals.

But I'm doing my best to take care of myself, and I'm holding onto that feeling of faith. Because even though a lot has gone wrong in the last few months, and there are many more things that could go wrong in the next half of the year, I still believe I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and everything is going to work out fine.

Immigration and Invisibility

2011-06-23T04:03:00.002+01:00

I am amazed at the courage Jose Antonio Vargas has demonstrated in writing this piece and coming out as an undocumented immigrant. Wow.

My Team

2011-06-08T01:24:00.003+01:00

Even though I'm sad about not getting my shot at becoming a DC Roller Girl this year, here's what makes it bearable: my Free State Roller Derby teammates, the Black Eyed Suzies.

This Is Not My Year

2011-06-07T00:48:00.003+01:00

I've decided not to try out for the DC Roller Girls tomorrow.

I spent Friday night in the emergency room--my third trip to the hospital in the last six months. If I were to make the cut at DCRG tryouts, fresh meat camp is twelve weeks long. I have not been healthy for twelve weeks in a row since last fall so it seems rather fanciful to believe that I could stay healthy for twelve weeks of meat camp.

It also seems clear to me now that I am going to have to have surgery for the diverticulitis. So even if I did somehow make it through meat camp without a major health incident, I would still be looking at taking a couple months off after that for surgery, so basically taking a break before I would even really be getting started.

My body is not ready now. It kills me to say that because I have tried so hard to get ready. But I'm not ready, and there are plenty of women who are. This is their year. It's not going to be mine.

I'll have my surgery. I'll get healthy. I'll keep practicing with my team in Maryland. Next year I'll try again.

Will I Or Won't I?

2011-06-03T20:30:00.002+01:00

I'm home sick--back on the liquid diet for the fourth time since I was hospitalized in February and the second time since I saw the surgeon and started drinking more water. Meanwhile, my roller derby team has its first real scrimmage scheduled for Sunday and DC Roller Girls tryouts are next Tuesday.

I'm most concerned about tryouts. I keep running through all the possible scenarios in my mind. These are the two that worry me the most:

1. I'm sick and can't try out, and I have to wait a whole year before I get the chance to try out again.

2. I try out, and I make it, and then I get sick and can't complete the requirements for fresh meat.

I think the second one would be worse. Partly because it would be so disappointing, and also because I would be taking a fresh meat spot away from someone else.

What am I going to do? Keep drinking fluids and see what happens, I guess. I'm not really sure it's diverticulitis this time. The symptoms are a bit different. Maybe it's just a normal stomach bug. Even so, I'm starting to think that if I don't make the cut at tryouts, I should just have the damn surgery and get it over with. I don't want to keep being sick all the time.

Assignment: Eye Contact

2011-05-17T02:25:00.002+01:00

My professor friend came for a visit this weekend, and when he left he gave me an assignment. We had been discussing my dating life, and the fact that I only ever meet men through online dating because nobody ever talks to me in public. The professor said I must be giving off a vibe. Do you smile, he asked. Do you make eye contact? Do you dress friendly? I don't really know what dressing friendly means--I told him I generally aim to look like a sexy librarian--but he's right that I don't make eye contact or smile all that much.

The professor told me he wanted me to make eye contact and smile at three men a day. This is harder than it seems. I was out walking around DC yesterday, and I did the eye contact thing, but there is something about cracking a smile that terrifies me. I guess I figure eye contact can be an accident, so you don't actually have to own up to the fact that you're trying to connect with another person. That's not true with a smile. A smile unabashedly says, hey, look at me looking at you.

Why does this horrify me so much? I think it is the immediacy of the possible rejection. You smile at someone and they turn away and you wish you were...invisible.

Sigh.

I'm going to work on it, but it's not going to be easy.

The Surgeon

2011-05-10T02:34:00.003+01:00

I went to see the surgeon a couple weeks ago, and I was very impressed once I got to meet him. He sent his colleague in first, to take my medical history on a post-it note. If you read this blog regularly, you know my medical history is rather extensive. So when the guy flipped over the little green post-it note and started writing on the back, I couldn't help saying, "I see you're writing this on a post-it note." He said, "That's enough for most people."

Anyway, the surgeon and his colleague conferred about me before the surgeon, Dr. B., made his entrance. You'll never guess the first thing he said to me. I didn't see it coming--my gastroenterologist had been very gung-ho about the whole surgery thing and I had expected that Dr. B. would be also. But the first thing he said after reading my post-it note was, "I think your allergy medications are causing dehydration." Then he drew me a little picture of my digestive tract and explained how proper hydration is essential.

Water? You mean, all this time I've spent tracking my fiber intake, and all I had to do was drink more water??? It's too soon to tell, but the guy may be right. I've been keeping track of my water intake ever since, and so far so good.

He also said that he doesn't think there's any rush for me to have surgery. He had lots of reasons and statistics, and I was really surprised because I was certain he was going to tell me I need to have surgery right away. Even better, if I ever do have to have surgery, it turns out that the procedure would be laparoscopic and much less invasive than my dad's surgery which, you may recall, nearly killed him.

So that was all very encouraging. He also agreed that it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a second opinion from another gastroenterologist, and that is on the agenda for June.

Water! Who knew?

My First Scrimmage!

2011-05-07T23:12:00.003+01:00

I don't remember my first pee wee basketball game, or even my first high school or college volleyball game. This seems odd to me. You'd think these would be formative moments seared into my memory.

Today my teammates and I went to the Charm City Roller Girls' open scrimmage in Baltimore. My first scrimmage! I want to remember today for the rest of my life. It feels like such a big accomplishment when last year at this time P. and I were just beginning to learn how to skate.

I want to remember the moment I made it through the pack and realized I was lead jammer for the very first time. The hit that made my spine crackle. The falling down and getting back up over and over again. The first moments warming up on the track with roller girls from five different teams and three different states and the realization I am part of that tribe. Amazing.

I was thinking about pee wee basketball today. I went back and read this piece I wrote two years ago about watching my nephew's pee wee basketball game, and the last sentence made me want to cry:

One of these days I will surprise myself by doing something I didn't know I could, just like the kid who scores his first two points in a pee wee basketball game and can't stop grinning until halftime.

I had never even seen roller derby when I wrote those words, but here I am. I've done something I didn't know I could.

Another Cycle of Sick

2011-04-26T00:59:00.002+01:00

Since my last post, I recovered long enough to attend three roller derby practices, and then I got sick again and was back on the liquid diet and feeling like crap. I am just now feeling well enough to think about getting back to skating again. If nothing drastic happens between now and Wednesday, I'll go to practice for the first time in a couple of weeks and see how I do. Sadly, this body of mine has been seriously undermining my preparation for DC Roller Girls tryouts. I'm really starting to feel discouraged about it.

On the bright side, I have lost ten pounds since the beginning of the year--the seven I gained in 2010, plus three more. My clothes are definitely getting looser, and I had to go buy new underwear today because my old underwear was falling down. The purchase of this new underwear marked an important milestone in my weight loss journey: I am now too thin to wear Lane Bryant underwear!

The hardest thing about the diverticulitis diet is that it completely saps your energy. Liquids and white carbs are a terrible way to eat. I haven't felt like blogging because all I feel like doing when I'm not working is sleeping. I hope to pick up my writing pace if I can ever get this health problem taken care of. I'm going to see the surgeon on Friday, and I have an appointment with a second gastroenterologist in a couple of weeks to see if I can figure things out.

Getting Serious, Take 2

2011-04-03T19:01:00.003+01:00

Instead of getting serious, I got sick again. First a migraine that eliminated the possibility of my Sunday morning run, and then abdominal pain that put me back on a liquid diet for most of the week. I seem to be better now. We have an endurance skating practice tonight, so I guess I will see how I do and perhaps ease a little more slowly into my training schedule than I had originally planned.

Time to Get (More) Serious

2011-03-26T19:34:00.002Z

I'm back at skating, and I'm feeling healthy. Every time I have a gas pain or something I freak out and wonder if the diverticulitis is going to flare up again, but I am trying to get over that. I'm also trying not to think about the fact that my gastroenterologist has referred me for a surgical consult. I think before I talk to the surgeon, I'm going to find another GI and get a second opinion. And I'm going to hope very hard that this last round of antibiotics knocked it out once and for all.

In the meantime, it is time to step up the roller derby training schedule. This morning I went to the DC Roller Girls' Derby 101 clinic, and they said they might be having tryouts again at the end of May or beginning of June. That's roughly nine weeks from now, enough time to really dig in and focus and get ready for another shot at the roller derby big time.

The clinic was great, and I definitely got good feedback on what to work on. I realize that I have improved a lot since the tryouts last July, but I also realize I still have a long way to go. I'm still one of the weakest skaters on my club team, and there were plenty of skaters at the clinic today who can outskate me. That's ok, though. I'm just gonna work my ass off and do the best I can. If I don't make it this time around, I'll keep trying.

I came home from the clinic and outlined a training plan that involves skating, running, and doing the roller derby workout video and maybe some other exercises to strengthen my derby muscles. I start tomorrow with a 25 minute run. I'll review my progress on here weekly.

In addition to the exercise, I will focus on diet and getting enough sleep. When it comes to the diet part, protein and fiber are the key words--protein to build muscle and fiber to keep the diverticulitis at bay. Nine weeks. I can do this.

More Like Myself

2011-03-14T01:11:00.002Z

Here are the things I did this weekend that have got me starting to feel like myself again:

On Saturday I went for a twenty minute run, and it wasn't bad. This week I will aim for twenty-five minutes and hopefully it won't be long before I'm back up to thirty.

I got a little bit of skating in today. We didn't have a regular practice because we were having team photos taken, but I did manage to skate around a bit and reassure myself that I remember how. It was great to see my teammates. I am sad that they keep getting better and better while I seem to keep having setbacks, though.

I wrote a poem.

I feel good. I'm not convinced I'm back to 100%, but I'm getting better.

I Feel Like a Wimp

2011-03-10T02:07:00.003Z

I missed another roller derby practice tonight. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and what feels like a cold, although I suppose it's possible it's allergies. For most of the day I told myself I was going to practice sick or not. But by the end of the day I was exhausted. March is the busiest, most intense month of the year at work, and if I get really sick again, I am done for. So I decided to stay home and rest.

I struggle so much with knowing when to rest and when to push. I'm trying to listen to my body, but I can't say I have liked much of what it has been saying to me lately. And I miss skating so much.

Status Report

2011-03-06T23:44:00.003Z

The good news is, I've lost the seven pounds I gained in 2010. (The hospital diet and it's aftermath, alas.) The bad news is: I don't feel very well. In fact, I feel weak and tired. But I finally finished three weeks' worth of antibiotics, so I should be on an upswing health-wise. Meanwhile, my dad's surgery went well, and I don't have to be stressed about that anymore. I decided to take one more night off from roller skating, just to make sure I am really recovered. I will get back to that on Wednesday, and I would like to attempt a run this week as well to see how far my month of illness set me back in that department.

I also don't feel skinnier, so I'm wondering where those seven pounds came from. I am hoping it wasn't all muscle. Although my father did remark, uncharacteristically, on my appearance while I was home. He said I looked leaner, younger and healthier and that it must be the roller skating. So maybe I just can't see it myself.

I'll regroup this week and post some goals for the rest of March by next week.

In the Hospital Waiting Room

2011-03-04T02:41:00.004Z

You ever run into ghosts of your former self? When you see those ghosts, give them some love. It was probably some trauma that got them there.--Suheir Hammad

Note: I wrote this in the hospital waiting room today while waiting for my dad to come out of surgery. He's doing fine so far.

The girl in the parking lot is thirty years old. She has spent the last decade dutifully assembling all the components of a happy life. She has a good-paying day job and a fledgling business of her own, a newly minted master's degree, a new husband.

She has been so focused on acquiring these things she hasn't yet realized that none of them make her happy, but her body knows. She is overweight and tired. She rarely exercises beyond a leisurely walk. If she were honest with herself, she'd admit she doesn't feel good, and she doesn't feel good about herself. But she is rarely honest with herself. Instead she counts her blessings the way a miser counts gold and tries not to think too hard.

This girl has no idea what's at stake, on any level. Most immediately at hand, she doesn't know what is at stake inside the hospital she is about to enter. It doesn't occur to her that anything can go wrong.

What did she have for breakfast that morning? What did she wear? She won't remember--it was a day like any other. It was winter. She probably ate oatmeal and dressed herself in fleece and denim and one of her heavy L.L. Bean coats.

It will be 48 hours before things go wrong. She is prepared to sit at the bedside of her drugged, recovering father. She has brought War and Peace because she knows she can read it the whole time she sits there and not finish and because she likes to read Russian literature in the winter.

It will be 48 hours before her father nearly dies. 48 hours before she enters the hospital for the last time full of hope and naive trust. She has not yet learned the joke: What do you call the doctor who finished last in his class at medical school? Doctor.

She will learn more about love in the days and weeks to come than she has learned in her whole life. She will learn what it is like to make the walk between the parking lot and the hospital in snow, rain, darkness, sunlight, winter wind and spring melt. It is a peculiar feeling, taking that walk. The heart sinks, faced with another day that offers no stimulus but stress. It takes all her strength to steel herself for whatever new horror might have presented itself overnight. She must focus all of her energy on smiling when she would prefer to cry.

I am giving her my love today as I sit, again, in the hospital waiting room. This silly girl who doesn't know what she's in for. It's a forest fire she's walking into, this girl who can't see the forest for the trees. It will be a long time before she sees anything green, and never again that particular shade.

The Hospital Diet

2011-02-23T03:21:00.002Z

I don't recommend it.

I've been sick for weeks. I had another bout of diverticulitis, and this time the antibiotics weren't enough. In fact, eleven days into a fourteen day treatment, I found myself in the emergency room. For the first time in my life, I spent a night in the hospital getting intravenous antibiotics. It wasn't fun, even with the morphine.

When you have diverticulitis, you have to restrict your diet--first to liquids and then to a low residue diet, which basically means nothing with fiber. Although it's possible I might get a little skinnier eating jello and white bread, I worry about losing muscle. Even more than that, I worry about losing all the aerobic endurance I have worked so hard to build over the last few months. I haven't run for a month. I haven't skated.

It's so discouraging. January was such a fantastic month. I felt energetic and healthy and strong. It seems like every time I start to feel that way, I get sick again. There's no other way to say it--It sucks.

Talking Myself Into Things

2011-02-13T15:52:00.000Z

Yesterday I told my friend, the one who went to the reading with me last week, about the poetry project he helped inspire. I went through the whole thought process I outlined in my last post, and when I was done he said, "You know, most people try to talk themselves out of doing things, but you talk yourself into doing them." I thought that was a fascinating observation and a sign of progress. After all, I spent a good portion of my life talking myself out of doing things.

Invisible Poet

2011-02-05T03:57:00.002Z

I was thinking, recently, that I have been feeling more like myself lately than I have for more than a decade. My college years were the best of my life because I was doing all the things that made me feel happy and authentic: thinking and learning about interesting things, playing a sport, and writing poetry.

The addition of roller derby to my life has made a difference. Before that I had only one of the three—a job that was interesting and intellectually stimulating. Now I have a sport to play, and I am noticeably happier as a result. It occurred to me, though, that the only thing missing now is the poetry.

Last night I went to see one of my favorite poets, Carolyn Forche, read at Busboys and Poets. There were two other women reading as well—Ruth Foreman and Suheir Hammad—neither of whom I had read before. It was an amazing reading. There were moments that literally moved me to tears. Afterwards, my friend and I sat together eating Busboys’ delicious sandwiches and sweet potato fries, and talked about writing. Our conversation went something like this:

Friend: You just need to sit down and write. It doesn’t matter if it’s good. You just have to write.

Me: That’s what everyone says, but staring at a blank page doesn’t work for me. That was never how I did it.

Friend: Well, how did you do it?

Me: I don’t know. If I knew how I did it, I never would have stopped.

It’s the same conversation I’ve been having with myself for about fifteen years now.

This morning, as I sat reading something decidedly unpoetic, I observed once again what I said for years when I worked as a grant writer: most bad writing is really just bad thinking. Is there a lesson here for my poetry, I wondered?

I think so.

Back when I was serious about writing poetry, I walked through the world thinking like a poet. In fact, poetry was how I made sense of everything in my life. I turned ideas over in my mind as I went about the rest of my day, I talked about ideas with my classmates in the cafeteria, I thought constantly about how I could make everyday experiences into poems.

How could I start thinking like that again? I’m very out of practice. On the other hand, I was very out of shape once upon a time, and now I’m not.

It occurred to me that maybe if I held myself accountable for writing one poem by the end of each day, it would inspire me to start thinking like a poet again. And just like that, I thought of an idea for a new blogging project: a poem a day.

I figure, if you write 300 or so poems, even if most of them are crappy, you’re bound to get a handful of good ones. And a handful of good poems would be more than I’ve produced in the last decade or so.

After all that, my thoughts turned to the other obstacle that has kept me from writing all these years—fear.

Back when I was writing seriously, my work was generally regarded as promising. I am certain that part of what stopped me from writing was the weight of all that potential and the fear I wouldn’t live up to it.

The other day I was reading a piece in the February edition of Oprah called The Creation Myth. (I would link to it, except it is inexplicably not available online.) The author describes a cartoon in which a woman sits at a desk thinking, “Is this good? Does this suck?” The caption reads, “I’m not sure when these two questions became the only two questions I had about my work.”

I think I became so worried about writing something good that I couldn’t write anything at all.

I have put all my insecurities about fitness and weight and body image into this blog, and it has helped me. Maybe I can do the same thing with my poem a day blog. I’m not afraid to put crappy first drafts on the internet every day. Get ready to meet the Invisible Poet, people.

Restaurant Eating: A Tip from the Pleasure Diet

2011-02-01T22:15:00.000Z

I read this article about the “Pleasure Diet” recently and really liked it. The diet basically involves eating mindfully and enjoying food in moderation. Pretty much the basic principles of healthy eating. It’s important to me that my diet not be based on deprivation. I know that if I want the weight I’ve lost to stay off, I have to be able to eat delicious—and sometimes fattening—foods.

It’s a tricky balance, this moderation thing. I find that it becomes more difficult the more often I go out for dinner. The article offers a suggestion for making better choices in restaurants—order a salad and an appetizer. You get your vegetables, and you get a small portion of something delicious, and you save room for the best part of every restaurant meal, dessert.

I have at least three restaurant meals coming up this week. I’m going to try it.

January Report

2011-02-01T03:50:00.001Z

My January goals and how I did:

Roller skate twice a week. This happened two out of four weeks. One week a practice was canceled. Another week I wasn't feeling well. Actually, I was really just very tired. I am never certain how much to push when I am super tired--I never know if it's my body's way of telling me to rest, or if I should just push through it. To avoid this problem, I'm making an effort to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, more when I can.

Run once a week. I met this goal. Go me!

Track calories using Lose It. I did this pretty well the first three weeks of the month but sort of fell off the wagon last week. This app really does provide a sense of perspective, but it becomes difficult to use when dining out frequently, which I did last week. I find it is more useful as a planning tool--I can see how I'm doing on any given day and can plan for special things I want to eat. I start to lose interest if I exceed the calorie limits for a day or two, which also happened last week.

Results. I lost three pounds in January. Not a bad start to the new year. I'm tempted to amp up my February goals, but I think I'm going to keep them the same for one more month. Work is about to get insanely busy, so it may become more difficult to fit in exercise, and as the stress level increases, I am likely to have less energy. I'd like to hold my own for another month and see how I feel after that.

Happy Skater-versary!

2011-01-23T19:27:00.001Z

It has been one year since my first roller skating lesson. I've come a long way!

Embracing My Inner Black Swan...And Kung Fu Panda

2011-01-17T14:20:00.007Z

Black Swan is at its heart a story about the crippling power of perfectionism. In white swan mode, Natalie Portman inhabits a character whose fear of not being good enough grows to psychotic proportions at the same time it inhibits her from taking the risks necessary to grow as a dancer.

One of the great things about playing a sport is that it teaches you to take risks. I've been reminded of this recently in roller derby. For instance, right now I'm one of the weakest, most inexperienced skaters on my team. We often do drills that require one of us to skate away from and then catch back up to the pack. It's hard to do if the pack is moving fast and you're the slowest skater. For weeks I had been afraid of falling on one of the turns because I knew if I fell I'd never catch back up to the pack.

Then one night at practice we were doing speed trials. The goal was 25 laps in five minutes.* My teammates are a very affirming group of women, so they were saying nice things to me like, "You're only competing against yourself, so just go your own pace and do the best you can," and I realized they were right. I didn't have to worry about catching up to anyone, and the worst that could happen if I fell was that it would slow me down a little bit. I decided to throw myself into my crossovers on the turns instead of just gliding around so I wouldn't fall.

I didn't fall once. And I skated 27 laps in five minutes. It was a breakthrough moment, and I realized that I could do this in the rest of practice, too. So what if I fall down and don't catch up to the pack? I could hear the voice of Natalie Portman's dance teacher in my head, "Attack it!" along with the DC Roller Girl who told me, "If you're not falling, you're not trying."

It is the most amazing thing, to be learning this sport. Every week at practice I can see myself improving and learning new things. Here's something I learned last night: I'm not that easy to knock down.

We were doing a hitting drill, which I'd never done before. So I'm skating around trying not to get knocked over, and one of my teammates skated over, hit me, and fell down while I stayed on my feet. It was a hallelujah body image moment because I realized that I am built for this sport. I've got strong legs and some meat on my bones, and I can take a hit. I felt like Kung Fu panda in the scene where he realizes that his layer of body fat protects him from the evil guy who paralyzes all the Kung Fu masters.

Ah, roller derby. As the panda might say...Awesome.

*Our track is smaller than a regular derby track.

How Many Calories in a Single Malt?

2011-01-09T17:01:00.002Z

Lately I've taken to walking to a nearby pub for a mid-week drink and a chat with another friend who lives nearby. On Thursday I looked up the calories in a single malt Scotch (using Lose It) and the amount of walking it takes me to get to the pub and back. It turns out they exactly cancel each other out. What a nice coincidence.

My Christmas Tree is Still Up: How I Have Changed in Three Years

2011-01-08T15:04:00.003Z

My Christmas tree is still up, a full two weeks after Christmas and one week into the new year. I am absolutely certain that this has never happened in all the years I've been a grownup, and I think it is a good indicator of the ways in which I've learned to relax and let things go a little.

Three or four years ago, back when I was my old Type A control freak self, I would have insisted the tree come down no later than new year's day. Not only that, if something had prevented the tree from coming down on time, I would have felt stressed and anxious about it. It would have been one more chore on my to-do list that had to be crossed off before I could give myself freedom to relax and do something fun. My husband and I sometimes fought about this tendency of mine not to enjoy myself until I'd crossed things off the list. It meant that fun was the last thing I had room for at the end of a long, crowded, busy day or week. It should have been the first thing, or at least high on the list.

Now I do what I want when I feel like doing it. I haven't felt like taking the tree down yet, and I haven't made the time. It's not hurting anything sitting there in the corner. Its presence there is not a reflection on my organizational skills or my ability to run my household. Every once in awhile I look at it and say, "I should really take that down this weekend." Well, the weekend is here, and I have other things going on. Maybe next weekend. Heck, the tree is pink and purple. I could leave it up through Valentine's Day if I felt like it.

Penelope Trunk on Dialectical Behavior Therapy

2011-01-08T03:38:00.003Z

Penelope Trunk says what I have been saying all along: the key to change is learning to feel your own pain.

January Goals

2011-01-05T03:36:00.000Z

1. Skate twice a week.

2. Run at least once a week. Eventually I would like to work up to twice or even three times a week, but right now my roller derby practices are kicking my ass, and I need a couple of days afterward to recover. Running once a week—as I have done since Thanksgiving—should be enough for maintenance.

3. Track calories with my Lose It iPhone app. My plan is to restrict my calories enough to lose ½ to 1 lb. per week. At the same time, I’ll track my protein and fiber intake to make sure I’m getting the recommended daily allowances, 46 grams of protein and 25 grams of fiber.

My 2011 Goals

2011-01-05T03:35:00.000Z

1. Try out for the DC Roller Girls. (Again.)

2. Lose 33 lbs. (This includes the 7 I gained back and the 26 I wanted to lose in 2010.)

3. Maintain the ability to run at least 30 minutes without stopping or walking.

2010 Goals--How Did I Do?

2011-01-04T02:46:00.005Z

I set three goals for 2010. Here's how I did:

Try out for the DC Roller Girls*
I met this goal. Trying out was a huge leap for me. There's a very big gap between talking about doing something and actually doing it. I could have stayed in the stands wishing and fantasizing. Instead, I put on a pair of roller skates for the very first time in my life. learned how to skate, and showed up at tryouts. I didn't make it, but I learned what I need to work on to get better. Maybe 2011 will be my year.

After tryouts, I took a bit of a break from skating. I was busy with work and trying to figure out the best way to go about improving my skating skills. It took me awhile, but eventually I settled on skating with a club team in Maryland. After a month of skating twice a week with this team, I know I made the right move. I can feel myself becoming physically stronger and more skilled with every practice. It's a great feeling. I feel like a real athlete, something I thought I'd never feel again when I was heavier.

Complete the Couch to 5K Running Program
I met this goal; however, it took me way longer than it should have. My original timeline was for April, then June. I finally completed the program toward the end of October/beginning of November.

Completing the Couch to 5K was a goal I knew I could reach because I had done it before once when I was more out of shape than I was at the start of this year. Nevertheless, it took me a long time to get there, and most of the reasons for the delay were psychological. Partly it had to do with the fact that I hate running, but even more importantly, it had to do with not being mentally able to push myself through feelings of tiredness and physical discomfort. This year I learned how to push through pain. Experiences like gritting my teeth through roller derby tryouts with a throbbing tailbone injury made me realize that I could endure more discomfort than I had previously thought. I think this was the most important thing I learned in 2011.

Although I'm running less now (once or twice a week), I'm skating more--and harder--than I did last spring and summer. Meeting my running goal is helping my skating tremendously--I can feel the difference in my endurance and leg strength. I know I need to keep up the running, something I wasn't able to do successfully last time, in order to be successful in roller derby.

Lose 26 Pounds
Meeting this goal would have brought my total weight loss from 40 lbs to 66 lbs and put me where I want to be BMI-wise. Not only did I not lose weight this year, as of last night's weigh-in I've gained 7 lbs, bringing my net weight loss down to 33 lbs. This isn't unusual. My weight has fluctuated by about 6 lbs over the last two years, but it's not ideal, and it's a trend that needs reversing.

I thought all I needed to do to lose weight in 2010 was exercise more. It turns out I was wrong. My fitness level is much higher now than it was a year ago, but I'm also 7 lbs heavier. I can see that in 2011, I'm going to need to learn to eat like an athlete--taking in the right foods and enough calories to give me the energy to do the things I want to do, but restricting my calories enough to lose more weight.

Next time, my 2011 goals.

*My original goals was to become a DC Roller Girl, but I changed it to try out when I realized that I didn't have any control over the outcome of the tryouts beyond showing up and doing my best.

My Christmas Body Image Trauma

2010-12-15T02:14:00.004Z

It was seventh grade. We were doing a Christmas play.

Back then, I was a bit of a drama geek. I had established a comfortable pattern of playing the female lead in most of our elementary school productions. (Don't think this meant I had talent. At that age, the main qualifications for a leading role are the ability to memorize all the lines and to project your voice enough to be heard in the back row. I possessed both of these.)

But I loved it, too. I loved performing onstage. I was thirteen years old, Christmas was approaching, and our teacher told us he had engaged a woman from New York City with real acting experience to put together our production of The Night Before Christmas. I was ecstatic.

The woman came to our class. She spoke with an air of authority, and she was not kidding around with us seventh graders. I was thrilled. I couldn't wait to get started working with a real professional!

She returned a few days later to assign us our parts. Except she didn't give me a part. And not only that, I was the only kid in the class who didn't get a part.

For those of you not up to speed on the rules of Christmas plays in Harrington, Maine, let me enlighten you. Everyone gets a part. Even the kids who don't want a part get a part. That's the deal. Drama club is one thing--you choose to join, you take your chances trying out--but the Christmas play is part of the curriculum!

She made me the Stage Manager. She tried to make it seem like she had singled me out for something important, but even as a child, I had a pretty good bullshit meter. I didn't know what to think, but I knew I'd been slighted.

We were a few more days into preparations for the play when she took me aside one day. I will never forget this moment. She took me aside and told me that it is very important for the Stage Manager to command respect. Then she suggested I cut my hair. I believe her exact words were, "You should cut your hair and get it out of your eyes so that you will look more attractive."

I don't know exactly what this lady's theatrical experience entailed, but I can tell you she stirred up a lot of drama with that comment. I went home to my parents in tears--I had been a very good sport up to that point about not getting a part in the play, and I had embraced the Stage Manager role to the best of my abilities, but truly, to be told that I wasn't good enough even for that...and because of how I looked...it was too much.

My mother called my teacher. She told him I was done participating in the Christmas play. He said that was fine and agreed to straighten things out. The next day at school we had a meeting to discuss the play, and he told the class that I had resigned as Stage Manager. Then he proceeded to "encourage" my classmates to "encourage" me to continue participating with the production. I think he offered to make me a reindeer at that point. I remember not wanting to give in--even at thirteen I was pretty committed about standing on principle--but after being shamed by the theater lady and being shamed in front of all my classmates, I agreed to participate.

It wasn't until I grew up that I realized that it probably wasn't just my hair. I am sure the fact that I was an awkward, overweight thirteen year old with curly-permed hair, ill-fitting clothes and awful-looking glasses helped seal my fate with Mrs. Pierce the Evil Drama Lady. I offended her entire aesthetic. She was, as everyone kept reminding me, a Professional. She had a vision and it was not, as they say nowadays, inclusive.

I realize, now, what I must have represented to Mrs. Pierce. Here was some washed up theater person, whose career had probably topped out with a bit part on Broadway thirty years earlier, faced with the indignity of directing a Christmas play in middle of nowhere Maine. I imagine she had internalized years of failures, years of not being good enough, perhaps even years of not looking the part. Maybe she did, in fact, see some potential in me. (I did turn out to be a pretty good manager of other things down the road.) Maybe insulting my appearance was her idea of tough love. Maybe she thought she was going to save me years of disappointment.

Of course, that's not how it works with thirteen year old girls who are already well aware of their shortcomings. So whatever this lady intended, she succeeded in giving me one more reason to want to be invisible.

It's supposed to be a season of miracles, folks. Let's all be nice and cut one another some slack this holiday season. And teachers, if you're tempted to cast the fat kid as Santa, you might want to think twice about that, too.

The Rest of December

2010-12-13T03:21:00.003Z

Now that I'm over the diverticulitis and done with the antibiotics, which didn't make me feel that great either, I'm ready to get back to this fitness thing. I haven't run for two weeks, so it will be interesting to see how far I can get next time. While I didn't get back into my running shoes last week, I did get back into my roller skates. I've gone back to practicing with the club team in Maryland. My teammates have improved quite a bit in the five months I was away. That's ok--it gives me hope that if I stick with it, I'll get better, too.

My goals for the rest of December are to run twice a week and roller skate twice a week. In addition to committing to these goals, I'm also going to pay a bit more attention to my diet. I sat down and tried to figure out my average fiber and protein intake, and it isn't where it should be. So I'll be working on eating more vegetables and fish and maybe some protein bars. I'll also be tracking my calories on the diet app Lose It! which I used once upon a time before I got lazy.

Because Art is an Antidote to Invisibility

2010-12-07T00:30:00.001Z

Read more about the detainment of these protesters, and the censored film at the center of this controversy, here.

And Then I Got Sick

2010-12-01T00:57:00.002Z

My big worry leading up to the race was that I would get sick. If you read this blog, you know that I get sick fairly often. I started feeling some discomfort in my abdomen a few days before the race, and I feared it was yet another bout of diverticulitis. I adjusted my diet to include more easily digestible foods, and by race day, I didn't feel too badly. But it was only a brief reprieve. (Although, I like to think I warded off the infection with my mind, I was so determined to run that race. Power of positive thinking and all that.)

Last night I ended up in the emergency room. Today I'm on antibiotics and a liquid diet. Again.

It's frustrating to make a little progress and then get knocked back down again. I try so hard to be healthy, and sometimes it seems like it doesn't matter what I do. I was all ready to set some December goals, and now I'm confined to the couch.

Two Poems by Mary Oliver

2010-11-28T17:21:00.002Z

This morning I was flipping through Dream Work, a book of poems by Mary Oliver, and I came across a couple of poems that seemed to say something about the place I'm in these days.

First, these lines from Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Then, from The Journey:

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own...

I've been beating myself up a little bit lately. As the holiday season begins and I find myself far away from family and old friends, with the date of my divorce (December 1st) fast approaching and the longest nights of the year still ahead, I've been a little hard on myself. These poems remind me that it's ok, the things I've done. It's important work, trying to hear your own voice. Even if it hurts sometimes. Even if other people don't always understand. It's the most important work.

You can read the full poems here.

The Learning Edge

2010-11-27T17:10:00.002Z

One of my college professors called it the learning edge. In this weekend's Washington Post Magazine, local teen guitar player Nathan Foley described it like this:

The fretboard is just endless possibilities. I can do anything I want...I can recover from mistakes, or I can build on mistakes. I don't want to be perfect when I play. Because if I'm perfect, I'm not pushing myself hard enough. Every time, I want to push myself to a point where I might mess up, but not to the point where I know I'm going to mess up. I have to be right on the edge all the time.

Life lessons from a sixteen-year-old guitar player.

My First Race!!!

2010-11-25T20:16:00.006Z

Today I ran So Others Might Eat's 5K Trot for Hunger. It was my first race, and my only goal was to finish without walking, which I did. My time of 32:24 was a nice surprise since I've been running 12 minute miles on the treadmill.

Running a race was something I never thought I would or could do, never wanted to do. I had a complex about it because my sister is an elite runner and it was always a big deal growing up. So to actually do this was kind of a big deal for me. And then it was over, and I thought...that was it?

I guess that's how it is when you reach a goal. The excitement of crossing the finish line is nice, but it's all the steps you took to get there--for days or weeks or months before--that are the hard part.

I will admit, though, it was kind of amazing to be jogging along with 1,500 people next to the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. I thought of all the ways I'm blessed. I thought of the homeless poet I met in DC years ago. And I was thankful.

The Lovers of the Poor

2010-11-24T22:57:00.003Z

I used to use The Lovers of the Poor, a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, to teach young community organizers about asset-based community development and the process of entering a new community for the first time. (Obviously, the ladies in this poem provide an example of what NOT to do.)

This is my favorite part:

They've never seen such a make-do-ness as
Newspaper rugs before! In this, this "flat,"
Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich
Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered...),
Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.

I love the image of the newspaper rugs, which illustrate pride and resourcefulness the ladies fail to undertand. I've shared a lot of facts and analysis about poverty over the last month, but this is the image I hope will stay with you the longest--a woman spreading out clean newspaper rugs for the afternoon. A woman doing the best she can.

More Charts and a Quiz

2010-11-24T03:13:00.002Z

Want charts? Here are some more poverty facts in chart form from Stanford.

Could you survive in poverty? Take this quiz.

Your First 5k??? Have Fun!

2010-11-23T02:21:00.005Z

I asked my friend Sarah Brady, an experienced runner, to give me some advice in preparation for my first race. This is her guest post.

So you are running your first 5k and you may be very nervous. I remember the feeling quite well. As a matter of fact I get that anxiety every time I am running a new distance. There are many things I would have liked to know the first time I hit the starting line, but have instead learned over time.

1) My favorite motivator for running is Hal Higdon. He has the best training schedules and the best advice. While checking out his website one day I found the most important bit of information I try to remember every time I hit the start line of a race. He stated that no one ever said it is a requirement to run the entire race. I love this because the truth of the matter is you have a goal set in your mind--is it to finish the race, or just run/jog the entire race? Just remember that you get to decide what will make you feel good about your race.

2) It is better to not finish, than to never get to the starting line. I was participating in a duathlon with my mom about a year ago and was feeling bad that I was slowing down our progress. I started talking to another racer and we came to the conclusion that it is better to try than to never start at all.

3) Dress as if it were 20 degrees warmer outside. One of my biggest downfalls when I first started running was dressing too warm and tiring myself out from the heat. I now run in shorts and a t-shirt (sometimes long sleeve) until it is about 38 degrees outside. Once your adrenaline kicks in, you won't even feel the cold. If you are nervous about being cold until the race starts don't be afraid to take advantage of the bag check.

4) Don't quit running just because you reached your goal, instead set a new goal. I used to finish a race and then ride the couch until I was ready to think about what comes next. Set your next goal while you are running your first race; this way you will not lose your momentum.

5) Have fun! I love cheering people on while racing. The same people you cheer for may be at the finish line hollering your number as you are crossing the finish line.
I know these are simple quick tips, that may not necessarily prepare you for your first race, but these tips definitely have molded me as an athlete! I can't wait to run a race in DC with Carla!!!

The Working Poor

2010-11-20T19:22:00.000Z

Barbara Ehrenreich on the working poor.

Measuring Poverty

2010-11-18T03:18:00.004Z

The Stanford Social Innovation Review is, hands down, the best professional publication covering the nonprofit sector. As I regularly tell everyone who will listen, if you work in the nonprofit sector, you need to be reading this journal. This article explains how the federal poverty rate is calculated and the limitations of this and other methods for measuring poverty.

Chart of the Week

2010-11-11T17:43:00.001Z

This chart shows rates of homelessness.

Poverty FAQs

2010-11-09T02:58:00.001Z

From the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, Poverty FAQs.

Housing First

2010-11-08T02:04:00.003Z

Last week I mentioned Jonathan Kozol's book Rachel and Her Children, which illuminates the life of several homeless families in New York City two decades ago. Although not enough has changed since Kozol wrote his book, one fairly recent development seems promising, the housing first movement. I was moved and fascinated by this article about a housing first initiative in Portland, Maine.

Chart of the Week

2010-11-03T00:10:00.002Z

For you visual learners, I give you Chart of the Week. This week, rates of children living in poverty.

October Progress Report

2010-10-31T22:05:00.003Z

Today I officially completed the Couch to 5K running program! Now the trick is to keep doing it. Fortunately, I have a race in a few weeks to motivate me.

I met my goal of running three times a week only 2 of the four weeks in October. One week I ran twice, and last week I didn't run at all. I think I should get some credit for coming back after a week off and finishing the program, though.

My only goal for November is to run the Trot for Hunger.

Generational and Situational Poverty

2010-10-31T01:21:00.003+01:00

In her groundbreaking work, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby K. Payne distinguishes between generational poverty and situational poverty, "Generational poverty is defined as being in poverty for two generations or longer. Situational poverty is a shorter time and is caused by circumstance (i.e., death, illness, divorce, etc.)."

I grew up in Washington County, Maine, one of the most economically disadvantaged counties in the eastern United States. I saw generational poverty firsthand at the same time I heard a great deal of media rhetoric portraying the poor as lazy people who didn’t want to work or “welfare mothers” living off entitlements. But that rhetoric didn’t align with my experience in Washington County. What I like about Payne’s work is that it shows exactly where the rhetoric breaks down, highlighting how the hidden rules of our class system make it exceptionally difficult to move from one class to another—and especially to move out of generational poverty—and debunking the myth that people choose to live in poverty out of laziness or a sense of entitlement.

I understand generational poverty, but I fear situational poverty. I must confess, despite the fact that I have a good job and a salary that exceeds the U.S. median household income, I still live paycheck to paycheck with very little safety net. I often worry that I’m one missed paycheck away from disaster. I think a lot of people do. In fact, I think it’s why so much of the public discourse about poverty blames the victim. We want to believe that poverty and homelessness can’t happen to us. We want to believe that people living in situational poverty did something wrong to get there.

Several years ago, I accompanied a group of Maine college students on a spring break trip to DC to study the issues of hunger and homelessness. I will never forget sitting in the basement of the Pilgrimage listening to speakers from the National Coalition for the Homeless tell their stories. I especially remember the book editor who lost her vision and couldn’t work anymore and the homeless poet whose idyllic childhood in suburban Maryland couldn’t insulate him from the mental and physical health issues that made it impossible to hold down a job. These were people just like me—in fact, people who had grown up with far more advantages than I had—who had found themselves in situational poverty. There but for the grace of God...

Jonathan Kozol’s book, Rachel and Her Children, was required reading for the students on that trip. Kozol characterizes homelessness as “an institution that makes healthy people ill, normal people clinically depressed, and those who may already be unwell a great deal worse.” That is what scares me about situational poverty—the idea that you might find yourself in a hole you can’t dig yourself out of, no matter how smart or resilient you are.

I’ve never forgotten Kozol’s story of Mrs. Andrews, an articulate once-middle class woman struggling to keep from slipping through the cracks of a bureaucracy that functions more as an impediment than a safety net.

I recently wrote about the revelation from authors Chip and Dan Heath that self-control is a finite resource. People get tired of struggling, and the more tired they get, the harder it is for them to do what they need to do to change their lives. The only thing I have to struggle with most days is putting on my running shoes, and there are lots of days I can’t bring myself to do even that. When I think about the fortitude it must take to struggle under the weight of poverty—either generational or situational—I can’t feel anything but awe and compassion.

How Urban Violence Reinforces Poverty

2010-10-30T18:12:00.006+01:00

Here is the abstract from a paper called "Bullets Don't Got No Name: Consequences of Fear in the Ghetto" by a group of researchers from Princeton and Harvard. You can find the full paper here.

To understand the impact of high-poverty neighborhoods on families, we collected data from participants at the Boston site of HUD's Moving To Opportunity (MTO) demonstration. MTO randomly assigned housing vouchers to applicants living in high-poverty public housing projects. The vouchers allowed families to move to private apartments, typically in lower poverty neighborhoods. This paper reports the results of our qualitative fieldwork which included observation of the operation of MTO in Boston and in-depth interviews with participants. This qualitative work had a profound impact on our MTO research. First, it caused us to refocus our quantitative data collection on a substantially different set of outcomes,primarily in the domains of safety and health. In our subsequent quantitative work, we found the largest program effects in the domains suggested by the qualitative interviews. Second, our qualitative work led us to develop an overall conceptual framework for thinking about the impacts of high-poverty neighborhoods on families and the ways in which moves to lower poverty neighborhoods might affect these families. We observed that fear of random violence appears to cause parents in ghetto families to focus a substantial portion of their daily routine on keeping their children safe. In later quantitative research, we confirmed that parental monitoring intensity was reduced among families offered housing vouchers. We further hypothesized that the need to live life on the watch may have broad implications for the future prospects of these families including potential impacts on children's development and on the mother's ability to engage in activities that would lead them to become economically self-sufficient, although sufficient data to assess this hypothesis are not yet available. Third, our fieldwork gave us a deeper understanding of the institutional details of the MTO program. This understanding has helped us to make judgements concerning the external validity of our MTO findings, and has prevented us from making some significant errors in interpreting our quantitative results. Fourth, by listening to MTO families talk about their lives, we learned a series of lessons that have important implications for housing policy. For many of the things we learned, it is hard to imagine any other data collection strategy that would have led us to these insights.

Maura Kelly Makes an Ass of Herself

2010-10-29T00:39:00.005+01:00

You may have heard about Maura Kelly's recent post, Should "Fatties" Get a Room? (Even on TV?)

She later apologized citing, ironically, her own body image issues as the source of her discomfort:

...a few commenters and one of my friends mentioned that my extreme reaction might have grown out of my own body issues, my history as an anorexic, and my life-long obsession with being thin.

This after providing the most condescending weight loss advice imaginable:

I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It's something they can change, if only they put their minds to it...(I'm happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels...

She goes on and on like that for a lengthy paragraph. Really, Ms. Kelly? Did you get over your anorexia simply by putting your mind to it? Somehow I doubt it.

I could go on. I could talk about the cowardice of couching prejudice in false concern for others. (Obesity is a health issue!) I could speculate about why overweight people are one of the few groups it's still ok to vilify in public. I could note the unfairness that alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts and other similarly inclined self-medicators can't all be easily recognized by a common physical characteristic so that we could more easily target them with our derision, too.

Instead, I'll simply say this: Melissa McCarthy, one of the "fatties" in question, is adorable, and Maura Kelly is a hypocrite.

What Do You Know About Poverty?

2010-10-28T03:06:00.001+01:00

Take this quiz and find out!

I Have an Announcement...

2010-10-27T00:32:00.002+01:00

It’s official. I’m going to run a race. My first race ever!

Not to overstate the magnitude of this announcement or anything, but this is HUGE. It’s huge because I have been adamant for the last 20 years or more that I would never run a race.

I was afraid. You’ve heard all my running angst, my inferiority complex because my sister is an elite runner, my love-hate relationship with running. (Well, mostly just hate, actually.) I’m still afraid, but I’m on the cusp of finishing the Couch to 5K, one of my goals for 2010, and I am going to face my fear and do this.

I also want to give thanks—for my legs and my lungs, and most importantly, for the fact that most of the angst I share on this blog is about problems that are way at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy, and that’s a real luxury that too many people don’t have.

So in the spirit of giving thanks, my first race ever will be So Others Might Eat’s Trot for Hunger on Thanksgiving Day.

Here's a thought on Thanksgiving Day activism like the Trot for Hunger. One of my first jobs out of college was working to promote community service efforts on college campuses, and we often debated the merits of “band-aid solutions,” also known as direct service, vs. systemic changes that could eliminate or at least ameliorate social problems by addressing their root causes. A prevailing bias was that direct service was more about making people feel good than it was about solving problems. One day my colleagues at a Catholic college introduced me to the Two Feet of Social Ministry, and I finally understood the importance of doing both. After all, when people are bleeding, they need band-aids!

Thanksgiving Day activism might be considered a band-aid solution. You raise a little money. People are hungry so you feed them. But how does this help alleviate poverty and hunger over the long term?

Running requires two feet, and so does my approach to Thanksgiving Day activism.

To that end, in addition to raising money to support So Others Might Eat, in the month leading up to the race I intend to use this blog to highlight poverty issues. I plan to share facts and research, as well as personal experiences, to promote a greater understanding of poverty in the United States.

I hope you’ll forgive the slight departure from the world of fitness. The truth is it’s not that much of a departure. Poverty, hunger and food insecurity are health issues as much as they are social issues, and I’ll be writing about that, too.

So I hope you’ll keep reading, but even more than that I hope you’ll consider making a financial contribution to support my effort to raise money to fight hunger.

Although I plan to spotlight poverty in the United States, today I want to share this video of Jessica Jackley of the international micro-lending organization Kiva. I loved hearing her thoughts on poverty, and I love how she interprets Kiva’s mission as “retelling the story of the poor…giving ourselves an opportunity to engage that validates their dignity.” That’s part of what I want to do in the coming month, too.

Stay tuned. Please give.

The Gift of Year, Part 2

2010-10-24T17:58:00.003+01:00

Even as a teenager I was serious, focused and goal-oriented. I used to have to remind myself, even then, to live in the moment. For years during high school and college I had this quotation, attributed to eighty-five-year-old Nadine Stair on my wall:

If I had my life to live over, I'd make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been on this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, and a raincoat. If I had to do it over again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds and I would pick more daisies.

Wednesday was the first anniversary of my move to DC and the end of my year of doing nothing, and I think that quotation pretty well sums up what I tried to do this year.

Here are some of the things I learned along the way:

It feels good not to worry about pleasing other people. I live alone. There's nobody in this city who wants anything from me, and I like it that way. If there's any people-pleasing going on, it should be done out of love, not obligation. It should be a choice, not a chore.

Nobody has to please me, either. I wish I'd learned this lesson before things were too far gone in my marriage. So many of the expectations I had for my husband were selfish ones. If I could have relaxed and loved him for who he was instead of constantly trying to force him to be who I wanted him to be, maybe things would have been different. But it's hard to do that when you're expecting someone else to make you happy. Now I know that I'm the only person responsible for my happiness, and this helps me to go a little easier on the people in my life.

Taking care of yourself is an art. Especially for perfectionists with a protestant work ethic. I still find it hard to be gentle with myself, to know when to push and when to rest, to really listen to my body and spirit and heart and follow them toward the things I want and need. But I'm getting better at it.

The gift of a year. You know what I'm going to say next, don't you? I want to live every year like that, every day like that. That's my goal. The gift of a year, every year.

What Do You Love?

2010-10-20T01:53:00.003+01:00

I love this video from Sesame Street.

What do you love about how you look? What would you sing about if given the opportunity?

I love my legs. The strong thighs, shapely calves, and the elegant curve of my ankles especially in a pair of heels. I love my eyes, too.

Marilyn Monroe: Insecurity and Invisibility

2010-10-13T02:59:00.007+01:00

The November issue of Vanity Fair offers highlights from a newly released collection of Marilyn Monroe's letters and diaries.

One excerpt recounts a dream in which acting teacher Lee Strasberg and psychiatrist Margaret Hohenberg operate on Marilyn. Opening her up they find:

and there is absolutely nothing there--Strasberg is
deeply disappointed but more even--academically amazed
that he had made such a mistake. He thought there was going
to be so much--more than he had ever dreamed possible...
instead there was absolutely nothing--devoid of
every human living feeling thing--the only thing
that came out was so finely cut sawdust--like out of a raggedy ann doll--and the
sawdust spills
all over the floor & table and Dr. H is puzzled
because suddenly she realizes that this is a new type of case. The patient...existing
of complete emptiness...

The fears expressed in that dream are fears that I'm deeply familiar with--the fear of disappointing the people who believe in you, the fear that when people really see you for what you are, they'll be disappointed to learn that you've been faking it all along.

The article also mentions the insecurity that Marilyn felt in her relationships with men.

Her memory of [her first marriage to James Dougherty] revolves around her fear that Dougherty preferred a former girlfriend, probably Doris Ingram, a Santa Barbara beauty queen, which triggered Marilyn's sense of unworthiness and vulnerability to men.

Years later, Marilyn was devastated to read in Arthur Miller's diary that he was sometimes disappointed and embarrassed by her. While married to Miller, she had worked very hard to broaden her literary horizons, reading widely and tackling many of the classics in an effort to be worthy of someone with his intellect.

Let's reflect on this for a moment, shall we? Marilyn Monroe was the most recognizable icon of female beauty and sexuality in all the world. She was also a first rate comedienne, and it takes brains to do comedy well. And in spite of all that, she was insecure about her looks and intelligence.

So the next time I'm worried about being a fraud or a disappointment or not beautiful or smart or capable enough, I'll think about Marilyn. I hope you do too. In the meantime, you can watch this clip from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, my favorite Marilyn Monroe film. Although Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend is more iconic, I've always loved this opening song with Jane Russell.