Fat people can't eat cookies

In a former life I was in the military. The military has weight standards. The Air Force, which does the least amount of front-line combat related stuff, had the strictest standards and for a time the most laughable fitness test. If you did not make your weight and body fat measurements by even a pound or a percent, you were put on the weight management program. As if that wasn't enough, while you were on the weight management program, you couldn't be nominated for awards, attend military schooling, and you couldn't get the highest marks on your performance evaluation. You could otherwise be doing a stellar job by any other standard. Straight A's in astrophysics but flunk PE and you were pretty much a failure. I hate to speak for all women but I really think I do speak for almost all of us when I say we all have some body issue and recognize someone somewhere, often within eye's reach, looks better than we do, jiggles less where we jiggle, jiggles more where we wish we could. Even that girl switching side to side working it out wishes her arms were a little smaller and her boobs a little bigger. So the weight management program of which I was an alum was an extra special mind fuck on top of all the tools a woman is already equipped with to loathe her body.

While I was in the program, I felt eyes on me every time I raised my hand to my mouth. Birthday celebration in the office, no cake for Ava. Lunch, I'll have a salad. Snacks? No thank you, I'm headed to the gym. Mind you, I may have been 6 pounds over the weight limit but if the people you work with see you eat a cookie and you also fail to make your weight again, that cookie becomes an indictment. Sgt Iler over there, sure he has a beer gut but Sgt Iler makes his weight so he can have a cookie, you can not. That badly shaped woman with football neck (it paid to have a thicker neck as they subtracted that number from your waist/hip measurement), tiny waist and hippo hips, more fit than you. Did I mention she was a smoker too? I hated that program. I could write a book about it. One of the reasons I couldn't see a career in the service.

But life is like that isn't it? Arbitrary, unfair. You're naturally thin. You eat pretty much whatever you want but people still think better of you and examine your choices like they can replicate your results. You even give yourself some credit you probably don't deserve for eating an apple every now and then like it cancels out pizza. You figure somewhere along the line you are making superior choices to those of your fatter friends. You're obese. You don't get to eat cookies without people judging you. Even while you are losing weight, you're one of those people who just can't have cookies. If you talk about a craving in front of people who know you're trying to lose weight (or just think you are fat), it becomes an awkward conversation with the silent thought balloons over people's heads reading 'this is why you're fat.' If my projects go well, I'm awesome. If they crash and burn, it was stupid of me to invest my time in them. History belongs to the victors. No one wants to hear the loser's story.

In dating, something I have not accepted is that I can not be myself. No one is going to look at me ever if I insist on being me. I think I look good in khakis and an argyle v-neck cardigan but that's not bringing the sexy and the men I think I want will continue to overlook me. I want there to be a goddamn contest for my affection because I really am the shit. Instead, 9 out 10 normal men (not sweeping, repairing, or living on the street) wouldn't remember I had walked past them 2 seconds after I passed by. I have a standoffish personality. I can't afford not to look irresistible almost every time I leave the house if there is any hope at all a normal man will want to even say hello to me. One of the guys I went on a exercise deployment with said I was like 'sweat pants, no make-up, love me!' I told him he was right, that's exactly what I expected. And how has that worked out for me? Not so much. I could probably make up for in personality what I lack in curbside sex appeal but I'm not good at that either so it's kind of a loss all around.

But I understand the dynamics at play even as I'm at a loss to address them. So when someone says, 'oh you'll met someone' I kind of want to hit them in the face or say something mean. Not just because it's trite and they don't actually know that but because I do hope (though I sincerely do not believe) in spite of everything working against me (including myself) that I will meet someone. Someone who actually is what I thought my first love was. I don't think that exists and if it does, it probably exists for as long as it take for our Dateline 20/20 murder mystery or 'Who the @$#% did I marry' narrative to play out.

With my mom, there is a deck of things stacked against her leaving her little margin in any arena. She has to try to eat, she has to try to get her mobility back. Most of us when we suffer, we can just lie there and let it wash over us, lie there until it passes. If we don't want to eat, it's okay, we can afford a day with just a saltine to carry us through. She has to struggle while she struggles just so she's not even worse off if we ever manage to beat this thing. It's just not fair at all.

That my friends, is life. In luck and in despair, completely arbitrary. I sent a card to someone today with some lottery tickets and scratchers in them. They've had a bad run lately, they also have a mother in poor health, and have been recently sidelined with illness themselves. I thought about the implications of buying someone a lottery ticket and if I would be upset if they won big-if my one really lucky day ended up not even benefiting me. Odds really are that I'll never have to worry about what happens if they win because so few people do. But if they did, I think I would be happy knowing I was the vehicle for someone's amazing fortune. I think it would feel great and I would consider it a sign that anything is possible not just for others but for me, even when the odds are so amazingly slim.