Time takes Time

It takes a long time to get fat.

I need to remember that. These pounds didn't show up overnight (well, ok, some of them did show up in a relative short period of time...) and they won't disappear in a short period of time.

I've never been tiny thin, though. Even in high school, I remember my friend who was a good three or four inches taller than me giving me massive amounts of shit because she weighed in at 98 pounds and I was clocking in around 119... But I wore a size 8 or sometimes a 10, and while I wasn't comfortable with myself - I had a stellar case of acne, and I was a smart girl in a redneck town - I wasn't particularly convinced that I was fat.

I was still fairly convinced that I was ugly, though. My father and mother both reaffirmed this opinion - my mother on a regular basis... "You know, we can get you a nose job when you're 16, if you want." Until then, I hadn't realized there was anything wrong with my nose. "Maybe you could start taking toner classes at the gym. Once you lose some weight and it's worth the effort." "I don't see why you can't learn to walk gracefully in heels, but until you can, you may not borrow my shoes." "God, your feet are huge, good thing you can't borrow my shoes anyway."

My father only did once, but I must admit, I remember it better... I was getting ready to go out for a trip to the mall with some friends, and was... oh, I don't quite recall, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. I put on a bit of makeup and was wearing a red tunic and some black stirrup pants when my dad walked into the hallway on his way to the bathroom. "Wow," he said. "You have got to be the ugliest kid I ever saw."

Needless to say, I canceled my outing and spent most of the day sulking in my bedroom.

There's a part of me that wonders if I didn't pack on all the weight to ... I don't know, spite my parents. I mean, I already felt ugly, was constantly told I was ugly... why bother to try to stay thin, since I was ugly anyway? I mean, I liked to eat and I didn't like to work out, and why bother, since it didn't matter...

I do, however, remember with shock the first time I realized that I had gained a lot of weight. It was my freshman year of college, and my friends and I had gone shopping. I hadn't bothered to try on the pants I picked out. I knew I was a size 10. I'd been an 8 or a 10 for years... and I ended up having to return the pants and getting a 14. I remember wondering when that had happened. But I was in the middle of a lot of stress at school and my parents were finally getting a divorce. So I upgraded my pants and didn't worry about it too much...

That was... 16 years ago.

I hope it doesn't take 16 years to get rid of some of this extra weight.