You can dream and be anybody, but self-esteem is how you get it done.

I went for another walk today. I meant to mention my walking last night, but completely forgot. I do that a lot. It’s part of my charm.

But I digress. I do that a lot, too.

The weather here is starting to feel more spring-y, with a dash of winter thrown in. Like last week, it was in the 60s every day last week, up until Friday afternoon, when it started getting cooler and cloudy, and then finally snowed a little bit overnight. After a day of melting, today was back to near-50 with no snow on the ground. Though, there was a pretty biting wind coming from the north. And since the sun was out, I decided to take a walk.

Now, I have a problem working out “in public,” as many people my size do. It comes from years of being stared and pointed at. I am always just a teensy bit paranoid that it’s still happening. Because, let’s face it, adults still judge. Though, probably not as bad as I fear, but i’m working on that part.

Today, however, I sort of ran into some people I knew from school way back when. I was doing so well with that, hiding in my house all the live long day. I didn’t have to worry about seeing people I used to know, and having them find out how very little I’ve changed, and how very much I’ve grown (girth-wise, not height-wise). The small piece of comfort I cling to, though, is that I’m not sure they realized who I was. I was wearing sunglasses for one thing, and not everybody has my memory for faces. Plus, they didn’t call out to me or anything, so… I think I’m in the clear. But it still bugged me at the time, and for awhile I just wanted the ground to open up for me. I wish there was a magic pill to get over those feelings of inadequacy. It’d certainly make my life a lot easier.

Instead, I’ll just keep walking.

I’ll still love you, even if you can’t support me in my old age in the fabulous manner to which I plan on growing accustomed.

One of the things I’ve finally learned, in all my years of dieting, is that you absolutely have to have a good support system. Which is, often times, easier said than done.

The first diet I remember being on, I had told my best friend (at the time) about how my mother was restricting my eating and all of that. We started band camp just a few short weeks after that, and I was so excited. It was the first time away from my parents, and I would get out from under my mother’s ever-watchful eye, which never ever helps the dieting process. I didn’t intend on gorging or anything like that, I just wanted the pressure to let up a little bit. Instead what I got was a so-called best friend who announced very loudly to the entire cafeteria, “Are you sure you’re allowed to eat that? You know your mom put you on a diet.”

The saddest thing is, that didn’t even open my eyes to what a snake she was. That didn’t happen until she was out-and-out ridiculing me in the middle of class at our new middle school a few months later.

There is the possibility that a friend can swing too far the other way, too. The one who, when you acknowledge what size you are before anybody else can, just kind of shushes you. As if to suggest that not physically saying I’m fat will suddenly make me not fat. Well, I’ve always been allergic to bull shit, so that kind of thing just drives me up the wall. Especially since my mom tried for 20 years to convince me that I was “pleasantly plump” or “big boned.”

Uh, no.

I’m fat. I know it, you know it. Saying it isn’t going to make me fatter, or break down in sobs. It’s just stating a fact, like the sky is blue or the grass is green. Trying to imply otherwise is just an insult to my intelligence.