Day 25
October 29, 2021
Spirit of the Universe, please set aside everything I
think I know about myself, about my story, about my need for validation, and
especially about you, Universe, so that I may have an open mind and a new
experience with myself, with my story, with my need for validation, and with
you, Universe. Please help me to see the truth. Amen.
I’m going to say something shocking.
You don’t need to “love yourself.”
If you’re like me, self-loathing is behind many of the difficulties
in your life. I have trouble asserting myself and standing up for myself. It is
very difficult for me to form bonds that go deeper than the superficial. I don’t
trust other people and I tend to put myself last. The problem with the median
nerve in my left arm stems from the fact that I kept pushing myself well beyond
the warning signs that something was going wrong until one day I was in
excruciating pain and could no longer work.
If you don’t stand up for yourself, people will walk all
over you.
However, if you’re like me, you just can’t hang with the
idea that you need to “love yourself.”
When people tell me that, it makes me cringe.
The only person who can say that without it making me cringe
is Ru Paul.
Therefore, I advise you not to focus on “loving” yourself.
Accept yourself. Respect yourself.
You are as good as anyone else. Nobody deserves to be taken
advantage of or treated like crap.
You don’t need to believe that you’re beautiful. I’ll never
be able to think that I’m beautiful. Honestly, the idea feels kind of creepy to
me. “Beautiful” has never done me any favors. It’s a lie that guys who want to
get laid without caring about who they’re hurting tell.
I once saw a post on Tumblr that said something along the
lines of “I don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. They aren’t ‘tiger
stripes.’ But they are human and deserve to be treated with respect.”
That is what I’m talking about.
I will never think that my too-small eyes with their skimpy
eyelashes are beautiful, although I’ve always liked the color even though it’s a
moss-green rather than a scintillating emerald green.
I will never think that my chipmunk-cheeked face is
beautiful.
I can’t see my double chin as beautiful.
I don’t think that my gray hair is beautiful although I’ve
always liked the thick texture (except that it’s a real pain in the ass to take
care of) and I do like the way it looks right after I’ve applied the silver dye
that I use to give it a bit of pop.
I don’t think that my big ass, chunky legs, jelly belly, or
saggy boobs are beautiful.
And no, I don’t think that my stretch marks are “beautiful”
or “tiger stripes.”
What I do think is that people don’t need to be “beautiful”
or “fuckable” to deserve to be treated with common decency.
This old, fat broad deserves to be treated with the same
levels of common decency as someone half her age and/or half her size.
You don’t need to think I’m beautiful and fuck off with “seeing
the potential” in me. That shit is just creepy. Honestly, nobody wants to be
made into someone’s project.
You don’t need to “love yourself” or think that you’re “beautiful”
to be worthy of respect and dignity, and that includes from yourself.
I have a graphic that I use in blog posts with reasonable frequency.
It says: “the pressure to be perfect is purely for profit.”
Who is benefiting from convincing people (women in
particular) that they need to be a certain size or look a certain way, or they
are worthless?
The beauty and diet industries have perpetuated this trash
for years. They benefit from our self-loathing. They encourage it. It’s time to
hit back and knock these multi-billion-dollar bullies on their asses.
Two of the items in my son’s and my recent food bank
allotment were Smart Ones turkey dinners. These things were awful. There were
four tiny morsels of turkey in a weird-tasting runny gravy with watery garlic-flavored
mashed potatoes on the side. Aside from the fact that this isn’t enough food
for an adult, it was entirely unpalatable.
I used to sink a lot of money into diet frozen dinners and
shakes that left me ravenously hungry an hour later. This crap prompted binge
eating because starvation does that.
The only diet you need is the Fuck It Diet.
I eat many more healthy foods and binge a lot less since I
stopped dieting.
This doesn’t mean that my story has a Goldilocks ending
where I magically become the “just right” weight and the handsome prince comes
and swoops me off my now-svelte feet and we live happily ever after. I’m still
fat and there is no prince, not that I even want one. But I am healthier and
feel better at the size I am. Not that this is a measure of my moral worth. As
Ragen Chastain says, nobody owes it to anybody else to be what they consider “healthy.”
Spirit of the Universe, please help me to accept myself
at whatever size I am and wherever I am in life. Help me to discern what I
really want to focus on in life and to follow my dreams.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)
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