looking at life

[celticdragonfly]

While I was over at fordprfct's place for New Year's Eve, I was flipping through a Reader's Digest at one point, glancing at an article about Diana, Princess of Wales. Thinking about this, combined with thinking about a post over at Shapely Prose, The Fantasy of Being Thin, made me reflect on life.

Quote from the blog post:

Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has.
...
But when I was invested in The Fantasy of Being Thin, I really believed that changing this one “simple” (ha!) thing would unlock a whole new identity — this totally fabulous, free-spirited, try-anything-once kind of chick who was effortlessly a magnet for interesting people and experiences.

Here was Diana - thin, beautiful, fashionable, incredibly rich, famous, adulated. And - unhappy. Profoundly unhappy.

And here is me - fat, unfashionable, well off but not rich, unknown. Our culture would say that Diana should have been happy - and that I couldn't possibly be.

But I am happy. Very happy indeed. Loved and cared for and content and happy. Happy with my life, with my family, with myself.

Oh, there are goals to work on, things to fix, things to keep improving - places to grow, certainly. But none of that makes me unhappy - it just gives me more to keep doing.

I'm doing better and better at remembering to be happy, remembering to look around and notice the happiness more, and just work on the difficult things in life without letting them stop the happy parts.

Comments

[marymont.livejournal.com]

One important part of the pre-surgical testing for bariatric surgery is a psycho-social assessment. If you have unrealistic expectations, or if you're seriously depressed, you won't pass the PSA. I was nearly 300 lbs, and unhappy that I was that big, but not because I hated who I was, more that I hated that I was fat. I am now a size 14. I am happier at this size than I was at size 26, but I was happy with my life then, too. I just didn't know how much happier I would be at a healthier weight.

Enjoy the things that make you happy, but don't think that being thin in and of itself would make you unhappy.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that being thin in and of itself would make me unhappy.

I'm saying that the world around us insists that being thin in and of itself would make me HAPPY - and that being fat must make me UNhappy - and they're wrong on both counts

If the surgery is working for you, that's great. From what I've read, a lot of women get it because they believe that they can only be happy if they're thin. And a lot of them go through a great deal of pain and expense, and often don't end up thin anyway, often end up with serious ongoing medical problems, and certainly don't end up happy.