Superstar
“I can tell all my bones.”
I am not sure if last week was a week of huge achievement or a huge week of achievement, but all of those words are true in some order--achievement, week, huge. And it all happened.
Goal
Back in July 2017, I wrote a piece about body shaming (you can read it here ) and commented that I should lose somewhere between 25-100lbs (depending on if you ask me or the BMI chart). As of Saturday, I have lost 50lbs. While I have received many congratulations for this achievement (and appreciate all of them), it’s a bit embarrassing, really. First, just the fact that I was fat enough to be able to lose 50 pounds and not be dead is awkward. But, to really send it home, the government BMI chart says I need to lose 16 more to be “normal.” Considering it took me almost a year to lose 45 pounds and the last 5 pounds took another 4 months, I think I’ll keep my last 16 as a souvenir of the body I once occupied and, honestly, might have again.
And speaking of again, while I have been clearing my closet of clothing that no longer serves or fits me and getting rid of much of it, I have been creating a kind of trousseau for that body I had for so long and served me well when I needed it. You know the stats--something like 3% to none of the people who lose significant amounts of weight keep it off. I’ve no idea what kind of body I will have or want or need in the future, but I am going to keep some of my favorite clothes in a hope chest of sorts just in case I need them again. I don’t have to hate the person I was in order to not be that person again. I need to realize that she is not the person I need to be right now. My weight loss group leader asked me why I did not give up on my slow, slow journey to now (which, if you think about it, was no slower than anyone else’s journey from January of 2018 to April of 2019, I just lost 50 pounds along the way), and I said because I had people around me who accepted me in all my forms, but it took me all this time to find the form of me that I could accept.
Communion
Another event for which I received many congratulations this Saturday was making my first communion (I don’t know why I “made” it, but that is the verb everyone uses). Becoming a Catholic took a lot less time than losing 50lbs. I am pretty sure I don’t have to worry about Protestantism creeping back on without my noticing, but it is another manifestation of recognizing the me that is me. I was baptized Catholic as a baby largely because of external pressure on my parents from my father’s Catholic family, but I always identified with being Catholic even though I didn’t know a whole lot about it. My husband is Catholic and we raised our kids Catholic and they went to Catholic school until recently. It was that change that really inspired me to undertake the conversion process. I was Catholicing vicariously through my children. Now that my kids are at a public school, I have to Catholic for myself. A friend asked me if I felt any different now that I was really Catholic, and I think I do. I compared it to marriage--on the day before your wedding, you may have been participating in all the emotional, financial, domestic, and physical benefits of marriage (oops, should I have confessed that?) and the day after your marriage, nothing really changes except everything.
As it was Easter weekend, my daughter and I watched Jesus Christ Superstar, well, a few times between Friday and Sunday. I love that movie as a spiritual touchstone, a social commentary about race and choice, a study in 70s fashion, a musical masterpiece--every song--and a wonder of choreography (the “Simon Zealots” dance captures mindless exuberance without limiting it). We also went to the Stations of the Cross on Friday where I encountered the Psalm I used as my epigraph: I can tell all my bones. Without getting into too much Christ commentary in which I am not really versed, I read this line as an understanding of pain and suffering within its crucifixion context, but I also see it as a statement of profound self-knowledge and becoming through unbecoming. I can tell all my bones communicates a consciousness of leaving a body or an identity behind in the process of becoming who you are meant to be. We feel it in our bones when something is right. But this is more--I can tell all my bones. My awareness of my transition is so acute that I can count each part of me and know it is exactly where it is supposed to be, moving from who I was to who I am to who I will be.
