As I have said before in my post ‘Confined
by my Cage of Confidence’, I had decided that I wasn't going to be 50 and fat
so I started working on that at the start of January. As the weight has started
coming off and I find myself hurtling towards my milestone birthday, an idea
has started to form in my mind of being fabulous at 50.
It's the sort of tag line you read on a greetings card or a headline in some celebrity magazine that you glimpse when thumbing through the pages, as you're in the hairdressers waiting for the colour on your roots to take. For those pages though, it’s all a perception played out to portray the elusive image of womanhood. The everyday woman doesn't have access to Photoshop, airbrushing and a personal trainer who will work his magic with you every morning - more's the pity!
It takes a lot of product and time and effort to come anywhere close to the celebrity fabulous that every 50-something is going for! Actually, we're not going for that look at all. Don't get me wrong, we all love to dress up and slap on some make-up, blow dry our hair and paint our nails for a special occasion. It makes you feel good in yourself and adds an extra sass to your steps.
But on a daily basis, feeling fabulous surely has to go further than applying all that fake veneer, doesn't it? If you don't feel good within yourself, the rest is just a mask you wear to join in the grown-up's game of pretending everything is fine. The inside feeling of being fabulous takes a lot longer to achieve and it can be quite fleeting at times and take many forms. It may only be a little thing but it can have a cumulative effect: the times when I have successfully tried a new baking recipe and seen how much it has been enjoyed; when I have completed a difficult and demanding work task to meet a deadline; when I have spent an evening with friends and laughed until I ached and can’t even remember what it was that started us laughing. Valuing these moments has been part of pursuing my fabulous quest this year.
Prior to losing weight, I would put myself down regularly and outwardly joke that I was fat, like a mechanism to protect myself it was almost like if I said it first, then no-one else could comment and upset me. But a good friend pulled me up on this and got me thinking about why I was doing this. The knock on effect of this was that I started my weight loss efforts because I made myself stop having permission to be fat. My default to excuse myself by joking about it was no longer going to be acceptable to me.
When you've been big for a long time, it takes a long time to start to see the shrinking version of yourself. It's like a moth to a flame, picking up the larger clothes first and trying on bigger sizes than I actually need. Inside there's been this slimmer, more attractive and outgoing person waiting to be released and the big me, that's still in my mind, stands in the way sometimes.
To anyone who doesn't know me, I imagine I would still be judged as fat. Though I've dropped 2 to 3 dress sizes, I'm still not catered for in some high street stores and I know I have a way to go yet. In my head though, I have begun to feel more attractive and with that a certain body confidence and self-image is growing. That's the fabulous bit. When people tell you that you're looking good, when you've noticed that you're less out of breath, when you've started to look at the sort of slinky clothes that you thought no longer belonged in your boudoir, that's fabulous isn't it?
Don't get me wrong, it's not all about the weight. This year has seen a sort of awakening within me, as I've started to talk with friends about the darker places that I've been to, I've gained the confidence to explore what's been going on. The strain of shelving my emotions, shutting them up in a box on a high shelf has a negative effect over time. It's hard to feel fabulous when you've become disengaged and you're going through the motions of your everyday reality. Unlocking these inner thoughts hasn't always been easy. I think I've cried more tears this year than in the last ten and at times, it has felt like I've opened a flood gate. Yet, it has been a journey that friends have supported me on.
Writing this down has felt like the next stage of the process really – a therapy in itself. I start a page and it's as if I'm unlocking a series of doors in the hallway of my mind. To write is to create. This type of writing has allowed me to create a channel to process my emotions and lay them out there for others to see too. Some may take comfort from what they see laid out before them and perhaps recognise a little of it in themselves. Some may have no interest in it at all. Either way, there has been a response to the words on a page. An artist's work is always a portrayal of part of themselves and the exhibition process inherently stands that up alongside the artwork.
My words and thoughts, tumbled as they do from mind to page, are not nearly as grand as an artwork but they obviously represent a piece of me. Someone said it was brave of me to write about my thoughts and issues. I don't know if it is brave or foolish. I do know that it has felt like a natural step from the year of examining myself from the inside out. I'm feeling more okay with my thoughts and I'm planning to keep doing the things that bring a smile to my face. Mindful of actively adding positive experiences will in itself enable me to meet the negatives more head on. There are parts of my life that continue to cause me stress and currently, I have no control over these. I’m working on it but at least recognising that and asking my family and friends to help me with it, is making things more manageable. I have spent time coming to terms with who I am and where I want to go and I am determined to hit the next decade positively. So I am working on my chosen quest and slowly succeeding as, it has to be said, fabulous is a state of mind.
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