Last night I went to the gym wearing this shirt. Don’t you love the large cupcake on the front? And it says “Life is great… Cupcakes make it better.”. Isn’t that a perfect gym shirt? I’m sure anyone who noticed it was thinking “no wonder she’s fat!”.
I didn’t purposely wear it to the gym and for anyone who might be wondering -no, I do not eat cupcakes (not that I never have -I just don’t right now). My family owns a gluten free bakery and this is my Eleanor’s Bake Shop shirt that I wear when I work there. It’s quite the nice little bakery -we serve sandwiches and soups for lunch and dinner and many of those are actually quite healthy. I just have to stay away from the dessert baked goods while I’m there which is definitely easier said than done.
Anyway, I just changed out of my work clothes (from my other job) when I got home and put on my yoga pants and my bake shop shirt cause they’re comfortable. I was planning on doing some sort of exercise that evening with my sister-in-law Chelsea but those plans went out the window when my sister Laura texted Devan to tell him that his birthday present had arrived in the mail! She got him “The Hunger Games” DVD and I love The Hunger Games! She was going to drop off the DVD at the bake shop the next day but I didn’t want to wait so my exercise plans disappeared and I went to pick up the movie instead. I ended up having a little bit of time after picking it up before Devan was going to be home and there’s a gym close to my sister’s apartment so I decided to go.
This is quite the accomplishment for me. I have scrapped my gym plans before just because I was wearing this shirt because I care too much about what people might think of me. I’ve always been this way. So much so that I take great care to pretend like others’ opinions don’t matter to me. I actually think that this has contributed quite a bit to my unhealthy weight problem all my life.
I’ve always wanted people to like me but have been scared that they won’t or don’t. I think it kind of started with my birthday party when I was 7 or 8 years old. My mom planned this party for me and I invited my closest friends and not a single person came to the party! One of them wanted to but couldn’t so she brought me a present before the party but the rest of them just completely forgot. That was the last birthday party I ever had other than just with family. It was quite depressing and since then I’ve had self-esteem issues. I don’t like inviting people to do things with me because I’m always scared that the same thing will happen again. And if I do invite someone to do something and they say no (even if they have a good reason) then I have an irrational fear that they’ll always say no and I avoid inviting them again.
I deal with my self-esteem issues in a couple of different ways. First of all I put up a wall. I tell myself and others that I don’t need friends. I have enough family that I just don’t need the companionship of friends. If I tell myself that I don’t need them then it’s not a big deal when I don’t have very many -right? The other thing I’ve done is allow myself to be overweight or obese so I can blame my lack of close friends on that. This is totally ridiculous since I know people who are bigger than me and have way more friends but it’s how my brain works. Being fat is not totally socially acceptable so I figure if I’m fat then that’s the reason I don’t have close friends. If I lost weight everyone would love me and I’d have tons of friends. This is just another way of putting up a wall for me. I’m just telling myself that I could have tons of friends if I really wanted to but it’s just not worth the hassle so I CHOOSE to stay fat. I’ve always been kind of afraid to change because if I’m “normal” and tear down my wall and lose weight and people still don’t like me then I must just be unlikeable and I don’t want to deal with that. I have no idea if that made any sense at all but it doesn’t really make much sense in my head either so it is what it is.
But ever since I’ve realized this about myself I’ve been working on getting over that fear and not caring so much about what others think. So that’s why going to the gym with this shirt was such a big deal to me. It’s basically the first outward manifestation that my way of thinking is changing. I MIGHT be a “normal” person someday.
And for those people who are my friends and read this blog -please don’t think that I’m saying you’re not my friend. I’m not saying that at all. I actually do have quite a few friends and you’re all great! I know deep down that you’d do pretty much anything for me if I needed it. But I still worry what you think of me -I can’t help it. So if you’ve ever wondered why I don’t call or invite you to do things often this is why -I’m crazy. 😉 Please keep being my friend anyway!