Facing my stuff head-on

I'm on vacation this coming week for Spring Break since I work at a school.  So it's nice to be able to post this at whatever time I want because I know I don't have to get up at 5:30 a.m. in the morning.  Ah!  I had a really nice day here in Sunny California.  I started it out walking at the beach with one of my friends.  I knew that it was going to be hot one when I started feeling sweat on my neck within about 15 minutes.  My friend, who does photography, asked me if I would be willing to do a photo shoot with her.  She's building her portfolio and asked if I would like to do some pre-surgery pics, during the weight loss phase pics and then some after pics.  What a really cool idea!  Of course I said yes.  I saw some of the portraits she's already done and it's amazing work.  I can't wait to post them here on my blog in the future.

After running around when I finished that exercise, I met another friend for dinner.  I had my eating plan in mind when I suggested where we could meet so that I could keep things within a reasonable calorie count.  We went to a Mexican place that has a lot of grilled items, so I felt great about going there.  I didn't partake in the tortilla chips or order a margarita.  Trust me, I wanted a margarita, but I didn't go there.  When she got hers, I wasn't even salivating over it.  That's a lot of progress for me because I love me a yummy, slushy margarita.  For dinner, I ordered a jalapeno barbecue salmon with black beans and roasted veggies.  I know, sounds amazing, right?  Yes, I took a picture!

I ended up scraping about half of the barbecue sauce off the salmon because it was just too much for me.  It was also too much food in general, so I took half of it home.

My friend and I had such a great time together.  I had suggested we sit at a table because the whole booth thing makes me nervous ... I'm always afraid that I'm not going to fit.  I haven't had the experience yet of that, but I never want to have to deal with this time being the time where it happens.  She told the host that we wanted a booth in the back and I decided to just let it go.  Thankfully I was able to get in there, although it was a pretty tight fit.

As we were talking about everything under the sun, as girls tend to do, she asked me if I was currently dating anyone.  All of a sudden, every insecurity I have about myself came to the surface.  I told her no and she asked me why not.  I felt like saying, "What do you mean why not ... can't you see what I look like?"  She asked me if I was ready to date (after my breakup with my ex-boyfriend) and I told her that I think I am, but many times I just don't feel very attractive at all to men.  She looked at me with confusion.  I confessed to her that any time one of my friends has called me beautiful or pretty, I silently wonder inside why they would say something like that because I just don't feel like it's true.  She sat across from me and told me that I am pretty and I am beautiful.  I did thank her for saying that.

So often I just feel almost inhuman.  Part of me wonders if things will be better when I'm down to a more normal size and then other part of me says that I have to live the life I have now, not wait for some magical day in the future.  So we talked about that for a while.  I completely own the fact that I have low self-esteem when it comes to my body image.  She suggested that I think about putting myself out there.  In our conversation, she mentioned a dating app for my phone that has worked for others she knows and explained the concept a little.  I have dated before online, when I was younger and much more reckless.  In some ways, dating that way has changed and, in other ways, it's still the same.  But you just don't know until you try.  I did download the app, although I haven't opened it up yet.  It may take me a little while to get the courage up to move forward on it, but at least I'm willing to try.  It is a nice way to put myself out there and just see what happens.  I am seeing my therapist tomorrow and I think I need to talk about the whole body image thing.  It's really time to deal with it so that I feel better about myself as a worthwhile, deserving human being.  In many ways, I know that I am a precious child of God.  In other ways, I feel like such an unlovable "thing" that children point at in a crowd.

This is my stuff I don't like facing head-on because I have to be honest around those feelings and it's uncomfortable for me.  Part of keeping weight on, for many people, is a sense of a protective barrier.  If I don't let you in, you can't hurt me.  That all goes back to being abused and raped when I was a child.  Tack on what my ex-boyfriend did to me, and it's no wonder I'm a little afraid to move towards another relationship.  The other side of that, though, is that I want to be in a relationship again.  I don't like being alone and I never have.  So we shall see what direction I move in.  Ugh.

Water Challenge Day 74:  Drank 194 of 179 ounces

(I felt like I was going to float away!)