Living In a Material World ...

Hello everyone (or no one) ... I am the Divine Mrs. M and I just celebrated my 40th birthday partying with a variety of family, childhood friends and my grown-up BFFs.  My theme was a "Party Like a Rock Star" costume party wherein the Divine Mrs M portrayed Madonna from her Material Girl video.  I was rocking the pink dress, long pink gloves, sparkling jewels ... and a really fat ass.  *sigh* 

Now, I didn't wake up on my 40th birthday with an epiphany that I was fat.  I am quite aware of the fact that I am carrying a lot more baggage around than I did 20 years ago.  The thing is ... when you're in the process of becoming fat ... it's easy to deny, ignore, eat, deny, ignore and eat some more.  I remember Matt Lauer interviewing Kirstie Alley on the Today show once upon a time when she was promoting one of her numerous efforts to lose weight.  His question (or something to this effect) ... "How did you not notice you were getting fat?"  Hmmmmm.....spoken like someone who has never had a weight problem.  (On a side note, I've never really cared for Matt Lauer since this interview aired ... it was his tone.  I took it personally.)

The truth is ... if you are fat you know you are fat.  You don't feel good about being fat.  You lie to yourself and say that you aren't fat ... you say things like "big boned," "curvy," "horizontally challenged" and all the other lies big girls like myself tell ourselves to help us make it through the day.  You tell yourself that you are "healthy" even though you are well past your "sell by" date (BMI) on the scale.  You look at yourself in the mirror only from the neck up and are honestly shocked when you see a picture of yourself that shows the "curves" that even the best Spanx cannot hide. 

If you're like me, you spend an obscene amount of money on designer handbags because they always "fit" and aren't depressing to try on.  You also spend an obscene amount of money at what I refer to as "The Big Girl Store" (aka the plus size clothing store) to try and hide your flaws and still look as fabulous as you felt when you were a size ZERO ... because, believe it or not, I really was once a size ZERO!!!!!!  WTF????  I was one of the skinniest girls in my high school and my goal by the time I reached graduation was to weigh 100 pounds.  You know what?  I didn't accomplish my goal!  I ate and ate and ate and ate and I could NOT hit 100 pounds.  Youth really is wasted on the young. 

So, back to my fabulous 40 self.  I truly do enjoy my life ... I have a lovely husband, two lovely teenagers, one of those great dysfunctional modern families and the kind of friends that you cannot imagine living a day without.  The ONLY thing in my life that I'm not happy with on a daily basis is the roll of fat that hangs over the C-section scar, the bottom that sags and enters a room a full 30-45 seconds after I do and the jiggly thighs, arms, etc.  So, I'm on a quest to change this and I'm hoping you will join me on this journey.  I'm going to look deep within this formerly thin person and figure out what the Hell happened and how to turn this situation around.  Somehow I think it will be more of an internal journey that transpires itself into an outward change.

Will I be thin when this year is over?  Only God knows.  I'm gonna go the self-help group route and say "one day at a time."  Stay tuned and stay in touch ...

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