On settling

Hello friends!

I hope you all are doing well.  It's been quite a while since I've posted.  I took on a few too many things over the last few months, so my free minutes have been spent watching Gilmore Girl reruns and weeping into bowls of Crispix.   Just kidding.  Sort of.  Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas.  I'm feeling incredibly grateful to have some time to relax, sleep late, read books, and discover what percentage of the day my dogs spend licking themselves in inappropriate places (I'd say about 63%)

I've been thinking a lot lately about writing, and as an extension, about who I am.  You see, I've had the writers block that just won't quit.  I have a thesis that I desperately need to work on if I ever hope to finish graduate school, and when I sit down to write, I find myself completely blanking out.

I've used excuses...I'm busy, my classes have been in a different concentration, I will wait until after _________, but the truth is....I am just blocked.  I'm so terrified that what I'm going to say is trite or stupid or cliched, that I just end up saying nothing....I have about a dozen separate documents, all with a paragraph or page written...little puzzle pieces of thought, but from about sixteen different puzzles.


So of course, as an obsessive thinker and analyzer, I started trying to figure out where the block is coming from.  What do I hope to accomplish with my writing?  What do I want to say?  Why the hell do I even do it?  I thought about when I started writing.  I was young...elementary school.  Any of my siblings can attest to the fact that I was obsessed with reading.  One summer I was grounded, the terms of the grounding were that I was only allowed to read one hour a day.  In an act of ferocious defiance, I just smuggled paperbacks outside in the elastic waistband of my shorts and sat in the church parking lot down the road enjoying my Sweet Valley High.

In elementary school, I started writing.  I wrote poems, songs about the Browns and bible stories, mediocre stories.  I can't remember why I started, but I can remember why I continued.  I loved hearing people tell me they thought it was good.  I loved feeling smart and wise.  I liked feeling like people heard me.  I felt the person I was in real life didn't match who I was inside, and writing helped bridge that gap.

And sadly, twenty years later, I wonder if that is still what my writing is about.  A passive declaration of identity.  An attempt to prove that I am smart, and funny, that there's more to me than what meets the eye.  I recently read through a story I had written and crossed out all the humor I'd included that did nothing to enhance the story.  It cut the story down by 2 pages.   This made me really re-think my writing.  Maybe I'm not as good as I've always been told.  Maybe I am the writer equivalent of the American Idol contestant who sounds like a strangled cat but thinks they are a star because no one has ever had the courage to tell them they aren't good.  Maybe all these stories have just been a practice in intellectual masturbation, saying nothing new or interesting.

I suppose this is all a bit melodramatic, and self pity is not really what I'm getting at.  The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of the people that have the ability to write technically well.  They have an engaging voice, use lovely metaphors, weave a compelling story with their words.  But in my opinion a writer should have something to SAY.  If you are not writing because you have something to say, then why are you?  And I do have things to say.  I feel like I have a unique perspective, a sense of insight that is mine and mine alone.   I connect with other writers, I love reading, I sometimes go through my book collection looking for the beautiful sentences I have highlighted, just because a well written sentence inspires me.  Whatever narcissistic reasons I may have for being a writer, I genuinely feel like it's what I want to do.

But I think what's crippling me is fear.  As in life, sometimes it's hard to just say...aww hell.  Who cares what people think?  I'm going to do what I want.  Most people who know me would describe me as scatterbrained, habitually late, and a procrastinator.  Over the past two years, I have been earnestly working to overcome some of these things-I've spent my time organizing, cleaning, making lists.  I've worked on focusing on tasks at work, on embracing my habits and working around them.  I've worked on controlling impulses.  I've tried to be more practical.  My classes that I am taking are in a concentration to further the career I have.  I've worked hard to keep my house clean, to follow through on tasks.

But though these things have helped me to be more successful, I wonder if they've made me happier?  Perhaps there is a relationship between me being more organized and pragmatic and my writer's block.  On the outside looking in, my life is better than it used to be.  I'm a little skinnier, my house is cleaner, I got a promotion, I'm getting married in March.  But the truth is there's a part of me that thrives on the disorder I've lived in.  A part of me that loves frantically finishing things just before the deadline. A part of me that HATES that I've been taking a linguistics class that has dissected language, painted it as merely a formulaic series of grunts and noises as opposed to a living breathing reflection of who we are and what is important to us.   A part of me that is disgusted by the fact that there have been times I've passed up taking the time to write because I thought it was more important to dust or do laundry.

I suppose most people go through this stage, where they try desperately to hang on to their young, creative, idealistic self while trying to be a grown up.  But I don't want to just coast through life on autopilot, letting circumstance drive my experiences, as opposed to letting me drive my circumstances.

So often, when we hear of the term "settling" we are referring to settling in terms of a choice of significant other.  Why don't we ever talk about settling for who we are?  In our society, it's not okay to choose a mate who isn't deemed worthy, but it's somehow okay to accept less than we ourselves are capable of for the sake of being responsible.  But I reject that.  I don't want to settle for being less than I know I'm capable of.  Though I have self doubt, I know that I have more to give the world than a clean house and a biweekly newsletter.  It seems to me that people who come to the end of their lives with regret don't do so because they chose to be mediocre, they do so because they went through life making one decision at a time, each choice binding them tighter and tighter to the life they've lived, to the point that they get to a place that they think it's too late to change.  I don't want to do that. Though I'm not always positive that I'm a great writer, I know that I have so much to say.  And so I am rededicating myself to being a writer.  I can still be good at my job, and more organized, but I am not going to let that squelch who I am and what's important to me. I'm going to make my goals a priority, not an afterthought.  Being a writer may not be practical, I may never make a living at it, I may never be successful. But none of that should be the basis of my decision to write or not write.  I refuse to settle for less than I can be.  I can accept that I am imperfect, but I can not accept mediocrity by default.

Well I suppose I should wrap this up, I've been rambling for quite a while.   I hope to be posting more often, but even if not on here, I will be writing every day.

Happy New Year my friends.

It's been too long, so here is a hodge podge of ridiculousness

Hello!

I do apologize that it's been so long.  Even though I love to write, I do recognize that there are times in life where it is more important to do than it is to observe and report.  Such has been the state of my life over the last few weeks.

In a recent conversation with my ever so wise brother Jarrod, we discussed our shared need to put on a good front for everyone.  We aren't quite comfortable with putting our bad things out there, so when things aren't going great, we retreat, hide under a rock, and emerge when things are better.

Apparently I act similarly as a blogger.  If my message can't be upbeat and positive, then I just keep that message to myself.  So alas, I am back to my positive self, and back to blogging. While I am slightly disappointed in myself for falling into this familiar pattern of hiding from the world, I have learned a lot.  What I have realized in this little respite is...nothing horrible has happened over the past few weeks. I still have my job.  I still have my health (except for the stupid sinus infection I had.)  I'm still madly in love with a super hot dude who cooks, really gets me, and politely pretends he didn't see anything when he comes across my insanely unattractive old lady shaping garments.  I have a house, 2 dogs, an enormous family full of people I adore.  I have wonderful friends, Phish shows, a new wedding dress! My midsummer melancholy came to an end when I realized that the only thing that had changed was my attitude.  I let myself wallow in feeling overwhelmed, tired, incapable of being the person I wanted to be, chained to the person I'd always been.  I didn't visit my grandma, the sweetest person in the entire world, because I was too tired.  I watched bad tv, focused on all the things about my life that I wanted to be different.  "Life shouldn't be this hard!" I lamented.

The thing is, life is hard.  For everyone.  Almost all of the time.  Perhaps less so for some than others, but it's hard, and exhausting, and sometimes sad. It's easy to comfort ourselves by getting angry at the people who we think have it easier than us, which is a trap I admittedly fall into sometimes.  But I find I'm a happier, stronger person, when I realize each challenge that life presents us with is an opportunity for growth.  Whether that challenge comes from external factors,  or, as it so often is, your own head, conquering that challenge helps you to grow, helps you to realize that you can do things you thought you couldn't.  I used to think that positive people were positive because they didn't know any better.  But a few weeks ago I was reading an interview at the end of one of my all time favorite books (Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.  Read it.  It's not as racy as 50 Shades of Grey, but I promise you the writing quality is 500 million times better) and he summed up how I've been feeling lately better than I ever could. 

"It's strange, but as I grow older I find myself developing more optimism. I keep inching towards the point where I believe that it's more difficult to have hope than it is to embrace cynicism. In the deep dark end, there's no point unless we have at least a modicum of hope. We trawl our way through the darkness hoping to find a pinpoint of light. But isn't it remarkable that the cynics of this world-the politicians, the corporations, the squinty-eyed critics-seem to think that they have a claim on intelligence? They seem to think that it's cooler, more intellectually engaging, to be miserable, that there's some sort of moral heft in cynicism...I think that real bravery comes with those who are prepared to go through that door and look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small."

 This rang so true to me.  Sure, there's a cliche that struggle makes us stronger.  This is true.  But it doesn't just make us stronger, it makes us better.  Choosing to be positive as we grow older, as we see more of the things that are tough to see, as we learn about the heartbreak and struggle inherent in the human experience-this takes an extraordinary amount of strength.  Living a happy life comes easier to some than to others, but to those people who don't struggle for happiness like some others, perhaps you are missing out on a little something.  Allow me to indulge in a bit of metaphor, if you will.  When I've thought of moving to the south, or other places with warm climates, I've found myself responding that I wouldn't like it. 

"Why not?!" incredulous Clevelanders have asked me, their faces chapped from the cold, their socks wet, their will to live leaking out the hole in the new pair of boots they just bought. 

Well, incredulous Clevelanders, the reason is...I like the changing seasons.  I love the day in March where it jumps up to 43 degrees and you see guys walking around in shorts.  I love the feeling of the warm breeze thawing me out, the walks through soggy grass, the first time I have to cut my lawn.  I can't say for certain, but it seems to me that if you live in a place that doesn't experience winter, you can't understand the sheer joy of those early days of spring.  Winter is tough, but having lived in Cleveland the majority of my life...I can handle the cold.  And living through that cold helps me to enjoy the warmth even more.  Besides, who would want to live in a world without chilly fall days, leggings, cozy sweaters, and three comforters?  

Oh, such a fine metaphor, if not a bit cliched.  

And so as far as I'm concerned, bring on the winters of our discontent!  Because without them, perhaps I wouldn't enjoy the falls, springs, and summers nearly as much.  

 Alright, I'm going to take off.  It's time for my glamour shots with the lovely Hattie.  We're not calling it an "engagement shoot" rather a "hey, might not be a bad idea to have a few photos of ourselves that aren't crooked and shot via a camera held backwards by a person that's in the picture" shoot, which frankly seems more rock and roll.    

I hope you are all doing fantastically.  Life is good.  Savor these last morsels of summer, friends. 

The Opportunity Costs of Being Rotund

Two blog posts in 3 days?  Woooooah there.  Getting a little crazy up in here.  But as I sit on my couch, the beads of sweat from my evening run still grossing out my gentleman caller, inspiration struck. 

When I used to think about being overweight, I'd think "Ohhh I'm chubby!  Johnny Cool Guy isn't going to want to go out with me!" or "Now I'll never be a teen model!" (Oh wait sorry, that was Marcia Brady) My main reason for wanting to lose weight was so that other people would like me, wouldn't be grossed out by me.

Isn't it a wonder I wasn't successful?  I mean, there's no better motivation to accomplish something than to change what people you don't know or care about will think about you, right?

Well, as it turns out, not so right.

I recently read somewhere (upon further investigation to give proper props, on a Cracked.com list of 7 Scientific Reasons You'll Turn Out Just Like Your Parents) that as we get older, we are more likely to enjoy 
things that don't necessarily have a quick payoff. This is why when we're young, we like video games and nights filled with Natty light and flipcup, whereas when we get older, we start enjoying things like organizing our spice drawer and refinishing furniture. This makes logical sense, and might also help to understand why past weight loss efforts by Bethanys of diet past have failed.  Even when you work out for 2 hours, your waist doesn't automatically get smaller.  Ope, must not be worth the effort!

Despite the fact that there are lots of other great reasons to get healthy, a new big one occurred to me today.

I ran today.  It was hard.  I sweated a lot, breathed heavy, felt just a little dizzy.  It wasn't particularly pleasant to be running down a street in my neighborhood in this manner. 

However, when I was done, I felt amazing.  Had I not ran, I might have done a load of laundry, sat on the couch and watched tv, eaten some junk food, and felt my night complete.

Like so often is the case for us overweight people, food brings you joy.  In any situation, we immediately think of the food that goes along with it.  You're getting married?  Sweet, what kind of cake?  Your son is getting circumcised?  Sweet, what kind of cake? (Okay, might not be applicable in that context) But the point is that when food is the main thing that brings you joy in life, you aren't as likely to seek out other things.  If you can be happy sitting at home eating 3 cupcakes and watching eighties movies, why keep searching for other reasons to be happy?  If food is keeping you happy, you just might not notice that all your pants are too small and your body requires it's own zip code.  That you're skipping out on things you want to do because you don't have the energy, or are afraid people will judge you. 

This, my friends, is the thing I am no longer willing to accept.

You see, I do love food, and I always will.

But...there are so many other joys in life to pursue.  Relationships with amazing friends.  New experiences.  Helping others. Passion.  Conquering challenges.  Dressing up in clown suits.  Career success.  Family.  Learning.  Shopping for your wedding dress without mortal fear.  Things that require physical endurance.  There are so many places to see and things to experience in this world.

I suppose it's a cliche, for a reason.  When I look back at my life, I don't want to think about all the nights I spent at home watching movies and hiding from the world.

I want to think about the people I've loved, the things I've learned, the experiences I've had.

And so even though it's hard for me to run, and to take good care of myself...I'm going to do it.

Because even if it doesn't have the instant payoff of eating a glorious dessert, or a particularly awesome burger, in the end, being healthy means my life will be full of a lot more opportunities for joy.

And that's damn good motivation for me.

Happy Monday my friends!

Be kind!

Alright, 3 people who will read this.

It's time for some tough love.  Bullying has become the latest buzzword when talking about kids.  Whether you agree with the hype or not, it's true that bullying has been going on forever.  There's probably a stone carving of some kids pointing and laughing at another kid who wet his loin cloth.

I could write a full blog about the bullying phenomenon as it is, but I'll spare you the rant.  But as I've been thinking about it, it occurred to me that bullying doesn't seem to stop as we grow older.  In fact, in a way, most of us seem to be bullies as adults, as well.  If someone is fatter than us, she's a hoss.  If she's skinnier, she's anorexic.  If they're smarter, it's fake.  If they have a better paying job, it's a fluke.  If they're driving too fast, they're maniacs.  If they're driving too slow they're assholes.  If they like Nickelback, they're sheep.  If they paint their nails black, they're freaks.  If they don't like you, they're stupid.  The list goes on and on.  This pattern of judging other people to feel better about ourselves doesn't seem to stop, even once we're old enough to know better.

So my plea in this post is simply: Try to be kind.

Our culture has come to believe that people are nice because they are weak, because they are too scared to be tough.  Nice is weak, mean is strong.

And perhaps this is true.  Perhaps we should avoid "nice" which is defined as "pleasing, agreeable and delightful."  Instead, we should strive to be kind.  Kindness is defined as  "of a good or benevolent nature or disposition, as a person."

Perhaps the difference seems unimportant, but it is not.  Being nice is fake.  We are saying the thing we think that person wants to hear so as not to hurt their feelings.  We are withholding our actual mean opinions, and saying what it seems like we should.  Kindness is much harder.  Kindness involves asking yourself why you're being mean.  What is it about the other person that makes you think something mean about them?  Chances are, it has little to do with them, and a great deal more to do with you.  You call the other person stupid to make yourself feel smarter.  We decide that skinny girl is a slut so that we can feel like we have the upper hand personalitywise even if she's prettier.  In being mean to others, we are often really dealing with our own insecurity. 

It's been tough for me, it's so easy to be mean, so easy to judge.  I still struggle with it.  I still like to ridicule people, still rush to judgment, still say awful things.  No one will ever be perfect.  But in judging the lives others lead, we get to bypass judging our own.  Kindness forces us to look at other people as people.  That guy isn't just dumb, that girl isn't just obnoxious.  He or she is a person, who has made choices, who has heartbreaks, weaknesses, difficulties.  We tend to ignore the human aspects of the people we don't know, they just become things to compare ourselves to.  But each person, whether you know them or not, is battling through the experience of life, just like you are.  They have sick family members, they are struggling with school, trying to get a good job, trying to find happiness.  They may be like you, they may not.  They may be good people, they may not.  But we all are dealing with pain, and in most cases we have no idea what kind of pain other people are dealing with.   

The poem Desiderata tells us "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."  Our meanness is often about comparing ourselves with others so we don't have to think about them being happier, prettier, more successful than us.  Accepting that I am not the most extraordinary person in the world in every way is difficult, but what a freedom it is.  Instead of trying to be better than others, we can be the most extraordinary version of ourselves.  Isn't that so much more rewarding?  If you think about it, a lot of the issues in our culture come from our tendency to look at and judge what the others aren't doing instead of looking at what we are doing.  In politics, it's okay for our side to be shady because the other side is being shady. Campaigns are often based on what the other party is doing wrong instead of presenting what your party will do right.  In the end, how does that help at all?  All it creates is a group of people who don't need to actually do well, they just need to convince us that the alternative is worse.

I don't want to get too preachy, or accusatory.  I know we all do the best we can. But maybe some of us aren't even aware when we do it, I know I wasn't for a long time.  It seems we could all use a little more kindness in our lives. 

When we talk about bullying, perhaps we shouldn't just focus on the victims but should also focus on the bullyers.  What is it that makes them need to put others down? I read an article about a new disciplinary approach that greatly affected the number of expulsions, suspensions, and referrals greatly at a particular school.  The crazy new approach involved the principal saying to the kids that got into trouble "So, you were skipping class.  This doesn't seem like you, what's been going on?"  Apparently, this helped immensely.  It's baffling to wonder how many tragedies would be avoided, how many lives changed if we just showed kids, even the trouble makers, some kindness.

The same applies for us grown ups too.  Perhaps we temporarily feel better when we are mean to others-but it is so much better-for us and them, if we are kind.

And so, my plea, after this long and arduous ramble, is to please do the best you can to be kind to others.  Whether others notice or not, whether there's anything in it for you, kindness is such a gift.  In the end, we all need kindness sometimes.  We are all stupid sometimes, we all make bad decisions, we all act selfish, we all like at least one really terrible band.  In the end, judging others won't change that.   

I hope you all are well, and keeping cool.

 

Parentheses

          Hello, hello!  I hope you all had a lovely week.  I decided, in the spirit of using this blog to take risks, I'd share a piece of my actual writing in it this week.  This essay is one of my favorite pieces that I've written recently.  It's probably not the best piece I've written, or particularly interesting for others to read (Sorry!) but it is my favorite because it was the most difficult for me to write, and the most difficult to share with others.  In one of my writing classes, we read a piece called A Portrait of My Body by Phillip Lopate.  The piece was a written self portrait of sorts, and was incredibly brave, honest and interesting.  I felt compelled (and obligated by an assignment) to write a similar self portrait.  I went into the assignment with a goal-anytime I've talked about my body to anyone else, it's always been in a negative way.  With this, I set out to try and point out the things about myself that I like.  This was surprisingly difficult for me, as I feel it probably would be for a lot of women (and men, for that matter.)  I was so used to hating my body that finding something I genuinely liked was tough.  Anyway, below is what I wrote.  I thought it'd be a good introductory piece of sorts.  It's pretty long, but for anyone that soldiers through, I hope you enjoy.  :)

Parentheses

Those that buy in to the cliché that the eyes are the window to the soul would think my soul crooked.  I’m practically blind in my left eye, and when I am tired, even when I’m looking straight, my left eye shifts lazily to the side, like a soccer ball coaxed across the grass by a light breeze.  When I was five, my doctor had me wear a patch over my right eye to try to strengthen my left eye.  As a result, I walked around seeing the world as if it were an impressionist painting, a blur of colors and shapes that I could never quite make out clearly.  In those years, I wore a patch, and thick glasses, and ran into things.  It was really a pleasant time.  My mother used to put stickers on the patch to make it more fun for me.  I loved it, I felt so special.  For my kindergarten pictures, my mom told me I didn’t have to wear my patch, but I wanted to.  I went to school in the outfit she had made me, my patch and my sticker.  That little gesture of parental love and kindness made me feel invincible.  The patch didn’t really work though, my left eye is still bad.  This imbalance between my two eyes causes some interesting problems.  My center is off, and when I think I am walking through the center of the doorway, I am often veering to the left.  Consequently, I often run into open doors.  I also have very little depth perception.  One time I was driving home to Columbus from a concert in Indianapolis.  I saw brake lights ahead of me and slammed on my brakes, coming to a stop in the middle of interstate 70, cursing, wondering what the hell was going on.  Once I did, I was able to determine that the brake lights were approximately 500 feet ahead of me, and I had stopped in the middle of the highway for no apparent reason.  I now tend to avoid driving at night as possible, it seems like a bad idea to drive at a time when brake lights merely seem like mysterious glowing red orbs, more like a space craft to be studied than a warning to be heeded.    

            But my eyes really are appealing, when they’re looking straight.  They are well shaped, well spaced, and their hue appears to be different depending on what color I am wearing. I appreciate their efforts to accessorize my wardrobe,  sometimes they seem green, sometimes, blue, sometimes gray.  Once, when I was at dinner with my dad, my aunt, and my brother, I looked around and realized we were all looking at each other from the same eyes.  I’m not speaking metaphorically here, somehow, in the genetic lottery of the Pierce family, we all drew the same eyes.  My aunt told me we have my grandfather’s eyes.  I like knowing that.    I like that I have glasses to help me see the world more clearly.  I like that my eyes hint at my being a kind person, whether I actually am or not. 

I used to hate wearing glasses, but now I like them.  Time and technology have allowed people whose eyes need completely different prescriptions to wear glasses without them making the bad eye appear 16 times larger than the good one.  I do have to wear those plastic frame glasses, the thin framed ones make glaringly apparent the fact that my one lens is 457 times thicker than the other.  Thankfully they have come back into style and are created in lots of great shapes and colors, so I no longer have to look like a member of The Golden Girls cast when I have my glasses on.  Everyone thinks glasses make people look smart, and I’d have to agree.  I feel smarter and more powerful when I have them on, more comfortable as Clark Kent than Superman.  In wearing my glasses, I feel that my outward appearance in some way is aligned with who I am inside.  I look smart, I am smart.  It feels good.

I am of Italian descent, but don’t really look like it, except in one place: My eyebrows.  I have thick unruly eyebrows.  For a time I tried to pluck them myself, but plucking hundreds of hairs from your face every couple of weeks is quite a process.  I now try to get them waxed fairly regularly, to make them look feminine and nicely arched, but I don’t get them waxed into thin little lines like lots of women do.  I try to maintain their structural integrity, keep them true to who they are as eyebrows.   But I do like the way I somehow look more feminine when they form a smooth arch over my eyes.    

            My nose is identical to my father’s.  It is not small, but not exorbitantly large.  Given that I have full lips and big eyes, I think it’s appropriately sized.  In most ways I look like my father.  We have the same face, a similar build.  The only thing I get from my mom is the color and straightness of my hair.  I do not have the curse of the Pierce family black curly fro, and for that I am grateful.  People have always commented on the fact that I look exactly like my brother and I used to really hate it.  He’s a boy, I’m a girl.  Girls don’t want to hear they look like boys.  But I grew out of that.  When my dad, brother, and I are together, we really look like a family.  Also, I’m not constantly called “Jarrod Number 2” anymore, like I was in high school, so that makes it easier to handle as well.

My mom says she would kill for my lips, they are very full and have a nicely defined shape.  They really are quite lovely.  I have to be really careful when I wear lipstick though.  If it’s too dark, or too bright, I start to look like I’m wearing a pair of those wax lips.  Lots of neutral shades for this girl.  My lips constantly feel dry.  I have one of those insanely dangerous chapstick addictions everyone is always talking about.  I’m constantly slathering it on.  It took me a long time to want to wear chapstick. When I was smaller, in the winter my mom would attempt to preemptively soothe lips chapped by the cold.  She would tilt my head back, have me open my mouth as wide as possible until I felt like Pacman, until the hinges of it were separating and would then apply approximately 16 coats of Blistex.  Afterwards, she would wrap a giant scarf around my face so that only my eyes were showing, and send me on my way.  To this day, I still don’t use Blistex, as the smell instantly reminds me of the stench of it trapped by my scarf.  But I do have smooth, lovely lips.  Thanks for all your efforts in protecting them, mom.

I used to suck my index finger when I was a little girl.  I don’t know why I chose my index finger, but doing so drove a large gap between my two front top teeth.  Luckily when my wisdom teeth came in, it shrunk, but it’s still there.  When I have a big smile on my face, or am laughing too hard, my lips spread open too wide.  I am one of those gummy smilers, and when I am laughing, it is not a pretty picture.  My eyes become little slits, and you see all my teeth and gums.  I can’t tell you how many smiles and laughs I tried to stifle in a vain attempt to make these big smiles and laughs more attractive.  These days, I embrace the ugliness of my biggest smiles, refusing to sacrifice one more moment of uncontrollable laughter.  

            My head is large.  Really large, in fact.  When I graduated from Ohio State, and went to get my cap and gown, the standard cap didn’t fit.  The lady behind the counter said “That’s quite a melon you’ve got, eh?”  Her statement made me think that some career counselor had led her astray.  How could someone so clearly insensitive to the plight of the large headed be hired as the person who sells caps?  I suppose career counselors don’t ask your opinion on head sizes before placing people.  But she’s right.  I do have quite a melon.  My gentleman friend does as well, and I fear any children we might have will come out looking like Brutus Buckeye.  I like my head though.  It’s a big strong head, full of brilliance, a unique sense of wisdom and insight.  How could I write if I didn’t have this large head?  Where would I keep this verbal gold that I am sharing with you?  I’ll proudly sport my large head, knowing that my neck is stronger for having it. 

            My hair really is beautiful.  It’s incredibly thick, has been responsible for the demise of many rubber bands as they tried to tame my mane into a neat ponytail.  My hair was quite a bit lighter when I was younger, an ash blonde of sorts.  Over the years it’s slowly darkened to the darker side of a medium brown, the color of coffee with just a touch of cream. My hair is mostly straight but has a wave to it, can easily be coaxed into a curly mass.  In the summer it lightens, and there are golden blonde streaks throughout.  I like to think about the fact that a lot of women pay for the privilege to have streaks like my hair naturally has.  I’ve had a lot of unfortunate haircuts, and have settled on a standard longish cut.  It’s a big improvement from the mushroom haircut I had as a kid, I’d say.   Hair stylists marvel at how much hair I have, and there are days when I take a shower in the morning and my hair is still wet that night.  Having a lot of hair means there’s constantly globs of hair clogging the drain of my shower.  Hair care products are a weakness of mine, though most of the time, to be honest, I think I like them more because they smell good than because they actually do anything to make my hair look better. 

            My toes are really, really long.  The second toes on my feet, in particular are very long.  They far surpass the length of my big toe.  If I stretch my toes out, I can make it so that no toe is touching the other.  I don’t think most people can do that.  It’s a bit of a pain when I buy shoes, they are either a half size too small for my second toe, or a half size too big for the rest of my foot.  I like to think that if I had been born a few million years ago, when humans were somewhere between human and monkey, I’d be a leader of the pack with my long finger-like toes. 

            My legs are very short.  I specify that my legs are, because in general, I am not.  I’m approximately 5’6 but a lot of that height is apparently in my torso and large head.  For a long time I wondered why my jeans were always too long for me when I got an average length.  Then one day I tried on a pair of petite jeans and they were the perfect length for my legs.  There’s something odd about being a 5’6 woman who has to shop in the petite section.  As I flip through the racks of jeans, I feel all the short women gazing up at me, wondering what the hell I’m doing invading their turf.  I’ve wanted to step from behind the rack, put my hand at the spot where my legs end and say “look!  My legs only go up to here!  We are sisters in short leggery!” But I haven’t.  I just slouch as I walk through the section, trying to make myself look shorter.  My legs are strong though.  I like them for that reason.  They aren’t aesthetically perfect, but functionally, they are excellent.  When I bend at the legs to lift heavy stuff, they assist me in lifting it.  When I have to walk up several flights of stairs, they don’t cramp.  I feel like they are short scrappy members of my entourage, two short, thick tree stumps upon which the upper half of my body comfortably rests. 

            I have a beautiful body.  I am also overweight, by quite a bit.  Obese, actually.   I shop in plus sized stores, sweat a lot when I exercise, love sweets.  Those of you who know me might have been surprised as you read this, might have wondered why this piece isn’t full of the self deprecating humor about my weight that dominates my day to day life.  The fact of the matter is I have spent a large portion of my life making jokes to make other people feel more comfortable about my body.  I’ve imagined everyone seeing me and thinking “she’s fat.”  I make a joke, and we all laugh and they think “ahhh she is in on the joke.  We are fine.”  I’ve lived my life with every other part of my personality and appearance being parenthetical to the fact that I’m overweight. 

“She’s a big girl. (But funny!)”

            “She’s uhhh well…curvy, if you know what I mean.  (But smart as a whip!).”

            In worrying about how comfortable everyone else was around my body, I was never comfortable with it.  I hated it, in fact.  Don’t worry, friend, I’m not judging you, or them, or myself, or anyone.  I know this is how our culture is.  I’m not trying to pretend I’m not overweight.  I am.  I am overweight.  Fat, some might say.  Fat and disgusting, I’ve heard some particularly blunt people say.  And that’s okay.  Really, it is.  But you see, on this page, I can make the weight of my body parenthetical to the other things.  I can point out to you that I am smart and have lovely eyes, and pretty hair, and a good sense of humor, and long toes.   I’m not proud of my weight, but I’m not ashamed of it either.  I love my oversized stomach, my thick legs, my chubby arms.  This is the only body I have, and the only one I’ll ever get, so in that sense, it is my most prized possession.  I love it unconditionally. 

            A friend's daughter once looked at my stomach and pointed out

            “Your tummy is bigger than mommy’s.”  I laughed and nodded.

            “Yes it is.  You’re right.” I agreed.

            “Why is it bigger?” she asked, staring at it.

            “Well your mommy runs every day.  That keeps her tummy small.  That’s why it’s really important to go outside and play a lot.  That way your tummy will stay small.”

She nodded, satisfied with my response.

            “But honey, it’s not polite to comment on the size of peoples tummies.”

            “Why not?”  It was a good question, and I found myself wishing we all saw things as simply as she did sometimes.  Some people have big tummies, some people have small tummies.  It’s a fact.  It’s just one small part of who we are, not the factor that makes us decide whether people are worth our time or not. 

            “Some people wish their tummy was a different size, and it makes them sad to be reminded that it isn’t.  So we just don’t talk about people’s tummies so we don’t make them sad.” I told her, and she hugged me and ran off to play.

            I will continue to strive to be good to my body, to be healthy, to honor its needs.  But no matter what its size and shape, I will not let it put me in parentheses. 

The Better Bethany Project

Alright, here goes.

My name is Bethany.  Hello!  I am 28 years old.  I live in Euclid, Ohio, and lead a mediocre life full of extraordinary beauty.  I can not be described in a paragraph (who would want to read my blog if I could?), but I'll try.  I have a college education and a full time job.  I've lived a life where I've been lucky enough that my biggest struggles have been things like being too chubby and having too much to do in my life without enough time to do it.  I've tended towards a disorganized lifestyle, convincing myself that I don't have the capability to be organized.  I tend to keep a step back from people-I like having my distance, a buffer zone of sorts.  I love my friends and family like crazy, but fear they don't know it because of this particular aspect of my personality.

I believe passionately in the idea of moderation.  I think there is something really important about being able to look at situations rationally and formulate an opinion.  Aristotle talked a lot about the Golden Mean and that dude was pretty smart, so there's got to be something to it.   
 
I suppose if you are a random stranger, you are thinking "Why the hell do I care who you are?" and if you know me you are thinking "What is this bullshit thing about?"  Don't worry, I'm getting to my point.

I've wanted to start a blog for a long time.  I'm a writer, or I fancy myself one anyway.  I've wanted to be a brilliant writer of fiction, but have settled for adding bits of humor to the biweekly newsletter I write for my job.  This isn't quite enough to fulfill me.  Part of the reason I am not a successful writer (except for the saturation of people who think they're good writers, and the potential reality that I am a HORRIBLE writer but can't see it) is that I've been too scared that I suck at writing, and everyone would hate it, and think it's trite and mundane and stupid and self indulgent.

What I've decided is-so what?  Perhaps all those things are true.  Perhaps no one cares, and no one will read this.  That's alright with me.  My mission is not to say what I think you want to hear, but simply to share my experience.  The best way we connect with and learn from each other is through our experiences-so why not share them?  And so I am starting this blog.  And even more terrifyingly, I'm sharing it with my family, friends, and other random members of my facebook friends community (Hi family!  Hi friends!  Hi distant acquaintances and people who actively dislike me but continue to be my friend because you secretly hope to learn details you can use to gossip about me!)

And so after making the life altering decision to write a bunch of nonsense into a faceless void (brave, right?) I had another important decision: What the hell do I want to write about?  I've been tempted to start writing a self help blog, a weight loss blog, a "things you can't discuss at a dinner party" blog. But as a fat person who is in counseling and who doesn't think people even have dinner parties anymore, none of these felt true to who I am.  I do have some things to share, (besides my razor sharp wit)  I've learned so much in the last year about the kind of person I want to be, and more importantly, how I can actually become that person.  I've changed my outlook and behavior, and seen how much it's changed my life.  I've learned that some cliches about how we should behave are true, and some are gloriously false.  I've learned a lot.



However, a lot of this stuff ends up sounding  like  preachy, naive garbage.  We all hear these things ALL the time, generally in cute little one line phrases that we post on facebook and then forget

"Happiness is a journey, not a destination" 

"Love is never having to say you're sorry" (this one is crap, by the way.  But I suppose that's a rant for another time..)


And so, I thought, why don't I just write a blog about whatever the hell I want to, and just be me? As a big fan of me, this struck me as a brilliant plan. Sometimes this blog will just be me posting some of my latest writing.  Sometimes it will be about the journey I've been on to become a better person.  Sometimes it will be about how Meatloaf could get away with saying he would do anything for love and then immediately refuting it by saying "but I won't do that."  It'll just be me.  I'm 28 years old, and am on a journey to be the best person I can be.  Not the nicest, or skinniest, or funniest or smartest.  Just the best me.  This blog is a little part of that.

So thank you for reading this, I really do appreciate it.  I hope that sharing my experiences helps me to learn some more about your experiences.  I hope some of you get to know me a little better, or that my experiences in some way can inform yours.  Most importantly, I hope that the boxing match that my fiance is watching is over soon, because I think boxing is one of the most boring sports in the world.

Good night all!