You Look Great!... Are You Feeling OK?

Had another one of those encounters ... Ran into someone I hadn't seen in over a year or two --- it seems when you reach middle age this happens more often than one would think. I guess after 40 odd years and the various people you encounter over that time, it makes sense you would drift in and out of touch with many people, many of which you like quite a bit, but for one reason or another, your social circle shifts slightly and then you run into someone and realize, "Wow, it's been a couple of years..."

She didn't recognize me at first, so I guess it's been a couple of years, since before I lost the weight, and she observed that I had "lost a ton" (and I have, I don't resent the idiom) but then she asked if I was feeling ok... yes, no wierder than usual, I replied, making a joke of it.

I wonder about that question. I got that this summer from a really nice guy who used to model for my drawing group. Am I looking haggard? Do I look like a chemotherapy patient? I'm a healthy weight, according to my GP, and my dietician. I know I have a lot of excess skin hanging around, it comes from losing over a hundred pounds when you're middle aged, plus the expansion and contraction of yo- yo dieting over 30 years. I lost my double chin and gained a bit of a wattle (think turkey). My arms are flappy. My stomach looks like a melted accordian, even with many many visits to the gym. Of course, most people see just the face. I've seen pictures of myself and I look like I've been through something. I've got wrinkles. Lots of broken capillaries... I'm ruddy. Well, holy Dorian Gray, I HAVE been through something. I've been a freakin' potato chip gutter drunk. Maybe there are some battle scars showing. Is that pitiful, or... heroic?

Of course, It has been a particularly hard week. I'm coping with a big upswing of internal pressure to succeed and a tsunami of shame related to what I see as my failure to, and my feeling of broken-ness, weakness. I'm hard on myself and maybe that shows on my face. Monday night, in an ironic mirroring of my recent mental misery, I came down with some sort of virus that made my joints feel like those of a 90 year old, and my throat like it had been scrubbed with a bottle brush. I spent 3 days in bed. I just rose this afternoon to talk to the therapist, go to an OA meeting, and try running with my group (the last went surprisingly ok, and because I was coughing up junk, I finally managed to spit like a respectable athelete... the things you learn!)

So, yes, I have been sick. Maybe, just maybe, I looked it tonight. It's ok. I didn't eat over it. I was able to be perfectly miserable without binge eating. That's still a novel experience.