It is just a number, I know, and I have struggled as most girls and some boys do, against the opression of that number. The ideal weight. Ideal to whom? Where do we get these numbers in our heads? Mine came from my adolescence, and is strongly associated with that time of purity aand youth. I was 15 or 16 and never bothered to weigh myself, but somehow I know what I weighed. 116, 118, The number kept pace with the rising gas prices and still I have no idea when it became more than 120. It was just that I woke up one day and weight became a question and I was 140. How was that possible? I was a tiny girl.
Strangely weight and size are so confusedly wrapped up in each other that I am tempted to say that they have nothing to do with each other. I want to weigh less, and yet I like my body shape. I am okay with where things are laid out. I like the hint of curves that I have. When I look at myself I do not feel overweight. When I look at a scale I do. I have never really admitted it, except to my closest of friends, that I have a secret weight that I want to be. I am not that type of girl. I do not diet, I cultivate healthy eating habits. I aam not the type to obsess over clothes or how they fit, or looking good. It isn’t about that. It is very simply about a number. 120. A number that hovers over me insultingly.
When I created my identity I had brown hair, sometimes colored, I was an alternative girl, I was active, I had bad skin, and hazel eyes, and I weighed 120 pounds. It is how I see myself.
This doesn’t come up often, but since I started running, and had to keep track of m weight for training, it has snuck into my thoughts. Now I miss having a scale. Do I weigh less? Am I closer to that number? I feel like without a scale I am floating without a name, not sure if I am drifting further or nearer to my destination. Target.
I tell myself that this is nonsense. Health matters so much more than a number. Health is not defined by a number. Attractiveness is not defined by a number. It seems to be a little prince issue- adults always needing to measure things in order to give them meaning. So I walk by the store and I think about throwing down 40tl for a scale. After all, I am going to start training for my next marathon soon. But then I wonder why I have this obsession. This guilty little goal that will never, and probably should never, be achieved by me.
I feel such guilt that I struggle with this. I am supposed to be “better” than such mundane struggles. I should be struggling with ethics and questions of the soul, not weight. It isn’t something that I think about constantly, but it floats into my head often enough that I wonder why, and how it came to be, and wish for it to just fade away. 130, 140, are good numbers too, and I have known them for quite some time.
Strangely weight and size are so confusedly wrapped up in each other that I am tempted to say that they have nothing to do with each other. I want to weigh less, and yet I like my body shape. I am okay with where things are laid out. I like the hint of curves that I have. When I look at myself I do not feel overweight. When I look at a scale I do. I have never really admitted it, except to my closest of friends, that I have a secret weight that I want to be. I am not that type of girl. I do not diet, I cultivate healthy eating habits. I aam not the type to obsess over clothes or how they fit, or looking good. It isn’t about that. It is very simply about a number. 120. A number that hovers over me insultingly.
When I created my identity I had brown hair, sometimes colored, I was an alternative girl, I was active, I had bad skin, and hazel eyes, and I weighed 120 pounds. It is how I see myself.
This doesn’t come up often, but since I started running, and had to keep track of m weight for training, it has snuck into my thoughts. Now I miss having a scale. Do I weigh less? Am I closer to that number? I feel like without a scale I am floating without a name, not sure if I am drifting further or nearer to my destination. Target.
I tell myself that this is nonsense. Health matters so much more than a number. Health is not defined by a number. Attractiveness is not defined by a number. It seems to be a little prince issue- adults always needing to measure things in order to give them meaning. So I walk by the store and I think about throwing down 40tl for a scale. After all, I am going to start training for my next marathon soon. But then I wonder why I have this obsession. This guilty little goal that will never, and probably should never, be achieved by me.
I feel such guilt that I struggle with this. I am supposed to be “better” than such mundane struggles. I should be struggling with ethics and questions of the soul, not weight. It isn’t something that I think about constantly, but it floats into my head often enough that I wonder why, and how it came to be, and wish for it to just fade away. 130, 140, are good numbers too, and I have known them for quite some time.
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