Labels

So the article is out in the TU, and I am shocked at how much attention they are giving this. I didn’t expect to be the entire front page. The pictures are huge – I swear Oprah has never had such huge pictures published! Well, I signed up for it, so there I go.

I am getting such positive response from so many people – my colleagues, business partners, friends, people from church that I never met before…I truly appreciate the support. Since people are asking, yes, it’s a bit embarrassing to have such a personal journey in public print, but if I can do it right this time, and maybe even help one other person, it will be worth it.

The one thing – the only thing – that is really bothering me is that they had to publish my age. I have spent decades dodging the age question. Some people think that’s crazy, but I am one of those women who wanted my age to remain an enigma. I am getting a lot of, “Wow, I didn’t think you were that old”…and that right there is why I have kept it to myself. Age should not matter. I don’t think of myself as “50”, and I don’t want others to. When you have a number or a decade attached to you, it’s a label that doesn’t mean anything. I am not a number.

And so this leads me to deep thinking about why I have unwittingly accepted other labels that have become how I think of myself. I am a fat person…I get that. I remember struggling through Weight Watchers years ago being told to watch what a thin person does, think like a thin person, and do things like a thin person – I guess we all just accepted that we were fat persons. Oh, and I have been called a “binge-eater” – that one was laid on me by a doctor who was congratulating me on my WW weight loss, but cautioning me that as a binge-eater, I would always struggle. Thanks, doc. Then last year, I gained a new label – “morbidly obese”. “Morbidly” obese – is that supposed to be motivating? Is that disgusting label supposed to inspire someone to action?? What is the medical community thinking?? I’ve got news for them – giving me that label to deal with does not smack some sense into me. It says to me that I might as well give up and go ahead and eat all the luscious, gooey macaroni and cheese I want because it’s too late and I am on my way to an early death anyways so I might as well give in and enjoy what time is left. Oh, and pass the éclairs, please.

Right now I am on a public journey to uncover the healthy body that I have the potential to have. But I am also digging through the mind that is inside of it. Probably digging through years of stuff I have been covering up through (what seems to those who have never been here) some really bad habits. “Just stop eating so much! Calories in vs calories out! That’s all…it’s simple!” I know better. Obviously food is doing something for me other than nourishing me physically. I have to get to the heart of it this time. I am starting with the labels, and I will have to work to throw them aside and rise above them, just as I have always done with my age.