Again for the First Time

Last weekend was another one of those "Family Weekends" where nothing gets done. No laundry, no vacuuming, no dishes. It's great at the time, all that togetherness, but at some point, someone has to do laundry. Those clothes aren't going to put themselves into the washing machine and the number of pairs of underwear each member of the family owns is not infinite.

But the family time was lovely.

We spent a few hours at the lake on Sunday. The place was almost vacant when we got there due to a pop-up rain storm. We only had to spend fifteen minutes in the car before the rain let up and we descented upon the lonely stretch of sand.

Alyssa immediately plunged into the lake. She knows our swimming days are numbered as autum and school draw ever closer.

Olivia was equally brave, quickly making her way into the water up to her neck.

Watching the girls from the beach, I decided to strip down to my swimsuit in case I was needed to rescue an overly-brave child.

As soon as the girls saw me in my suit, they both implored me to join them in the water. It didn't take them long to convince me an soon I was standing beside Olivia as she bobbed up and down, declaring confidently, "I'm swimming!!"

I looked back at the shore and saw that Tom had taken off his shirt and was walking along the water line.

This man is three (3!!!) pounds away from his goal weight.

I am...sixty, that's a six and a zero, pounds from my own goal.

I sort of hate him.

Okay, not really but...it occured to me as I watched him walk that lonely stretch of sand that if we weren't already married, if we were strangers that day, there is no way I'd ever consider approaching him romantically.

I'm working on changing the fact that my weight affects my confidence so much. But I've learned over the past few years that as my weight goes up, my confidence in all other areas of my life goes down. Logially, I know that being heavy doesn't make me a worse mother/wife/daughter/friend/person than I am when I'm thinner. But I've never claimed to be logical. A Vulcan, I am not.

My problem on Sunday was that I realized that my husband is dreamy. And I'm not. I look like a frumy mom who doesn't take care of herself. And I hate that. Of course, I'm also working on that, the frumpiness/not taking care of myself part. So why even write about it if I'm already working on it?

Because I want to record my journey here, my journey toward healthiness, toward confidence, my journey to reclaiming myself.