What's in your closet?

I haven't written about this, and I hadn't planned to, but today I

cleaned out my closet and will be donating several contractor bags of

clothing. I'm a thrifter, so passing these things along makes total sense.

I have lost almost 100 pounds on Zepbound. I went to the doctor for my 50th birthday and was greeted with the news that my "pre-diabetes" was now

diabetes--just like many of my family members. I bargained with my doctor,

promised to figure it out, I'd work extra hard, I'd never eat a carb again. As she pointed out, that was pretty much the last decade of my life. She was not wrong. I decided that I had to try it, despite a lifetime of eating disorders, food anxiety, self-loathing, and then, eventually, fierce opposition to even talking about weight.

This blog isn't to tell the 100 pound story, but here's what you need to know: I tell everyone that this weight loss is NOT from self-discipline or exercising. It is from the science of this shot. I did not get sick. I do not have side effects. I don't have "food noise" anymore, and that is the thing that I like best. I am lucky though--many others who have gone this route have had to fight many side effects. Much like so many others, I have struggled with control and weight and obsessing and failing and false successes. I have lived cabbage soup and diet pills. I subsisted off of an order of Wendy's fries and a small Frosty as my whole day's calories for most of my Junior year of high school. I wish that everyone who struggles with their weight could find out what it is like to be free of the constant whirr of self-consciousness, fake wins, and the chaos of it all.

I had three large contractor bags to donate today. If you have had weight issues, you'll immediately know why. I have clothes from a size 12 to a size 22 in those bags. This blog is about the person who lived that life. I did not ever hate myself or feel ugly, but I always, always knew that I was "supposed" to be thinner. Even when I had managed to get down to 118 pounds, living on rice and diet Coke.

I want to talk about some of the clothes that are in that bag.

This is my varsity jacket from Denbigh Baptist Christian School in Virginia. I was an athlete for most of the troubled years of my weight roller coaster. I played volleyball, softball, and basketball. And, I was never, not even for short time, overweight in high school. But I thought I was. I've carried this jacket along for a lot of years, and I am proud of the girl who wore it. I'm sad that she couldn't recognize the amazing things my body was doing for me. I'm sad that my journals are full of diet plans, and victories that were false. But, I won't disown her. She was doing what nearly all my friends were doing too. My mom was complicit and thought she was helping me, but that is only because she too was living the lie that being the right size would make everything ok.

This is a dress that I bought at a Phish show about a million years ago. I LOVED this dress. I still do. It fits, after 30 years of hauling it around with me. But, I am not that girl either. I subsisted off cigarettes and caffeine. My college years are a blurr in the best possible way, and I didn't obsess about my looks or weight. I was actually quite free, but wildly unhealthy. My mental health was finally being considered by a therapist and a psychiatrist, for the first time. While that was important, it also opened up a bunch of wounds that I couldn't stop picking at until I finally seemed to run out of pain. It wasn't all bad. Or even mostly bad. It was some of the best times of my life, but my identity was woven with threads that extend back through my whole family tree. This dress is in the donation bag. While it finally fits again, I won't feel victorious. I'm not that girl anymore either.

Aaah. The wedding dress. I am triggered by it every time I see it, so I am tossing that in as well. I guess I had been saving it for my daughter, but I have disrupted that generational curse, so why pass the evidence on? I wanted a very different wedding than I had, but I was too young and broke to plan what would make me happy, so I just went along with everything.

This was a sleeveless dress that I liked a whole lot more, but I was told, "You're going to need to have them add cap sleeves. You don't have the look for that kind of dress." I was about an 18 or 20 at the time. I 100% was the person who could have, and should have worn a sleeveless dress. Instead, when the cap sleeves were added, I could no longer lift my arms to wrap around my husband's neck when we danced. I was that constrained. I really hope someone finds this and rips the sleeves off.

This is the dress I wore to the award ceremony where I was named the 2018 Association of Middle Level Educator Teacher of the Year. It was beyond sleeveless, as you can see. It was also when I felt the most beautiful I ever had. I was a size 18. I had two children, and I was glowing. I didn't once consider hiding. I was healed.

My body had done amazing things, and I had grown into my self. I no longer measured my worth in my size. Nope, I had switched that obsessiveness right on to being an overachiever, which though better, was kind of more of the same.

I look at this picture and cheer for myself. No freaking capped sleeves. It was one of the best moments of my life and I was not skinny, and I did not care. This is the dress that is hardest to part with because it is actually from a mentally and physically healthy me. But, I am trying really hard to shed the girl who had to overachieve to replace the other ways I had no control.

I love this dress and I loved that day. I remember that this was one of the rare times when the kids were younger when I felt like things were easy. Those are easy, untroubled smiles, and I put more value on that in retrospect than I did at the time, to be sure.

If you've read this far, you probably have experienced the roller coaster of weight and self-control, and obsessive thoughts, and self-loathing and self-congratulations. I didn't really have a plan for this blog, as I tend to just write it out and see what happens. All I know is that I gave away a lot of baggage today. I'm sharing all of this, I think, because I feel guilty. Zepbound changed my life. Not because I look so much better. I think I've always been pretty darn cute! It changed my life because for once I did not feel I had to be thinking and comparing. I realized that this must be what a healthy relationship with food looks and feels like.

When people tell me how great I look (or occasionally, ask if I am sick--which is an insane thing to ask btw), I ALWAYS tell them it is a shot and not a lick of self-control. I need everyone to understand that I do not have it in me to lose 100 pounds. I want everyone to know that as you look around at those of us who have taken this route, there's a story. We all have stories. And while it is self-indulgent to share mine, I feel I owe it to myself to write it all down.