Letting Myself Go

I've heard it said that many women will let themselves go once they are married. They'll put on a little weight, spend less time on their appearance. And then one day, years later, their husbands will wonder what the hell happened.

But I'm not going to say what you think I'm going to say. I haven't let myself go since the wedding.

No, I let myself go a long long time ago. There's just something about being married, comfy and calm that gave me a chance to put things in perspective and actually see what I'd done to myself. Or, really, what I'd let life do to me.

On Saturday I was at The Grove picking something up and then doing some writing at Barnes and Noble. For those of you who don't know, The Grove is what folks like me would call "The Rich People Mall." Everyone who shops there looks fantastic and coordinated, especially the teenage girls. Do you know how troubling it is to feel like a nerd when you walk by a group of 15 year olds?

Anyway, after several hours of typing away in the B&N Starbucks, I decided it was time to head home. But first, I stopped at the bathroom. While waiting in line for a stall to open I glanced over at my reflection in the mirror.

Who IS that? Her hair is slimy and in a messy pony tail. Her face is all broken out. She looks exhausted and pale. Her belly is hanging sloppily over her jeans. She's wearing a miserable gray t-shirt with gray sweatshirt combo.

You know, I used to care. I used to put effort into my looks. I'd have "outfits" not just "a shirt...with...these pants...yeah good enough." I used to spend more time at the gym if I noticed I was pushing maximum density in my jeans.

I guess you could say my self esteem is a little low these days. I blame the people who lied to me and told me I'd lose like 10 pounds the week of the wedding. Horsecrap! I was counting on this magic, guaranteed weight loss to counteract the effects of my stress-motivated Taco Bell trips and nightly booze consumption. Then there were all of the mai-tais on the honeymoon. And now presto-blobbo, we have a problem.

And I'm pretty sure the Starbucks peppermint mocha that I'm sipping right now is NOT part of the solution.

But aside from this morning's beverage choice, I've been trying to take care of myself and get out of this mess. On Sunday I ran a 5k and I'm hoping to do a 10k soon.

And I've been eating better (sort of). We have these snazzy wooden salad bowls from our wedding registry and they are motivating me to make salad every night. We also got a bunch of incredibly sharp knives as wedding presents, which are great for slicing off a hearty chunk of my thumb. Seriously, that happened the other day when I was cutting a tomato and it was really gross. And now my thumb has healed and it has a little scoop missing from the top. This is not the sort of weight loss I had in mind, but I think it will help me type more accurately on my new phone's touch screen.

It's all uphill from here.