... 'Cause I'm dying on the inside

    I wanna let go and know

    That I'll be all right

    All right.

[Car Crash, Matt Nathanson]

Part II

If you read yesterday's post then you know I was completely sobbing during the premier of The Biggest Loser: Couples last night.  Seeing those people, their pain, brought a lot of my own pain to the surface.

Now, I have to be careful; I'm writing Part II only minutes after finishing Part I.  I didn't feel well last night and I didn't fall asleep until 4 am, and I got up at 7:45.  Now, don't feel too sorry for me because my baby J has been working 18 hours of physical labor on 3 hours of sleep a night.  But the deal is, I'm really tired and overly emotional and when I get emotional like this I say stupid things I regret later, or I make commitments that I never keep.  So, I'm going to be wise with my words.

I saw the contestants standing on that scale, reduced to tears over there they have allowed themselves to get physically.  They know the shame, the rejection, the overwhelming pain of super morbid obesity.  The thing is, I have this same deep pain.  The rejection.  The ridicule.  The exhaustion of being constantly self-conscious, always aware of how others perceive you.

I remember being called "fat ass" by everyone from my dad, my grandma, my cousin (though, to be fair, that one was "thunder thighs" and said in front of my ENTIRE family at a family reunion), my mom, my friends, countless kids at school.  My senior year I was voted friendliest and best laugh, among others... and, for a time, "biggest beer belly".  The empathetic yearbook advisor nixed that one since everyone at school knew I was a Christian who had never touched a drop of alcohol... it was just a cruel way of calling me fat.

In college it was just as painful, just in a different form... it just turned into friends constantly trying to "help" me, subtly trying to tell me to change my eating habits and work out more but not offering to walk (literally, actually!) with me, just telling me what I should do differently.  My college pastor's wife consistently telling me that I was being judged as spiritually immature since I was obese.  Consistently being seen as an awesome friend but never considered a possibility for romance by my guy friends who cycled through crushes on most all of my friends.  Most of the same stuff happened in TFA (though, I was kind of obnoxious, the whole, "I'm a Christian and you all need to be like me, you sinners" bit, so don't feel sorry for me.  I sucked.).

I'm not saying they were bad people, my college and TFA friends; I wouldn't even say they did anything wrong.  They're just people and relationships are messy even when we're well intentioned.  I am saying that it hurt.

My point here is not to relive every hurt I've had.  What's really sad is that lately I have become more and more of a hermit.  Most of it is my health- it's really hard on me to be out and about, and even just nannying three days a week totally wipes me out.  I'm already stressing that I don't have a free day until... Sunday the 18th.  There's something- work, Dr. apts, church stuff, meetings with friends, etc.- every day between now and then.  Those things wear me down.

But... even being home all of the time I don't do much.  This is humiliating, but... I have a box of bills (that have been paid, praise God!) that I haven't filed in... I am so embarrassed to admit this... a year and a half.  We moved into this apartment in June and I still haven't organized the closet.  That's because nothing fits me and I never need to access my clothes so I just have disgusting piles overwhelming our closet.  There are as-yet-to-be-unpacked boxes in the office (well, the office cubby in our bedroom) still.  And Jason does about 90% of the housework.  I basically cook, water the plants, and... actually, that's it.  Just this last week I started taking over doing the dishes because I can't let Jason work this much and still do the housework.

Again, some of this really is because of my health.  My back has never been the same since the herniated disk and some days I can barely walk. My feet and ankles ache so much that just walking to the bathroom makes tears smart the corners of my eyes. But I hide behind these excuses.  The truth is, I have been spending countless hours bowed down in worship at the altars of comfort and escape.  I've been hiding away in TV.  I've been overeating.  I've avoided reading my Bible because I fear the actual conviction from the Lord that says I must change.  I don't believe God that He is more satisfying that comfort and escape.

What's really hard, the most painful thing to admit, is that I am lonely.  Overwhelmingly, achingly lonely.  I love and adore Jason, and it's not his fault- we just haven't really made any friends here in Seattle.  We have a great community group but it hasn't produced any friendships outside of group, despite attempts on our part, and we're not going to force the issue.  But I don't have anyone other than Jason to share my life with.  It really hurts.  I just really need a friend.  We need friends, in a similar place in life.  We don't have any married couple friends and I have no one I can really open up to.  We have friends in Bothell from before we moved (20 minutes from Seattle, though it might as well be 20 hours because it's a completely different world) and we were really close to them.  We try to be open and honest with our community group but there's only so much you can share without dominating the group, which isn't cool.  Plus, if there is something we are doing to push people away that would probably be it, talking too much.  Especially me.

Anyway... the loneliness is palpable, and it sucks.  This isn't really because I'm obese- I don't believe that anyone is rejecting me / us because of my weight.  But having no friends exacerbates the problem because I am so alone.  I have tons of friends I stay in touch with who mean a lot to me, but that's not the same as having another couple to sit down to dinner and a bottle of wine with.  It's not the same as being close with the wife, talking through things like respecting our husbands and living out the Gospel as a servant wife and the desire to have a baby even though it's not time.  It's not the same because my husband and I sat alone on New Year's Eve, never invited anywhere so even though Jas was sick and exhausted from 22 hour workdays we couldn't even comfort ourselves with the fact that at least we were wanted somewhere.

I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me.  I don't even feel sorry for myself.  I'm just not sure where to proceed.  I mean, you don't meet someone and go, "Hi, you're a great couple so now let's be best friends."  Most people have friends and family and such already and to develop close bonds like that take time and can't be forced or manufactured.  I am struggling though.  It hurts to be so alone.  Jason and I have even wondered if this is God's way of preparing us to move somewhere else, or to wonder if we're supposed to move to be closer to family, or what.

My obesity doesn't help- my involvement at church and ability to be uber social are pretty impaired by my size.  But I hope that seeking Jesus, trying to just draw near to Him no matter what the day may bring over and over again every time I wake up, will provide comfort.  I do want close friends but I know I need to just be patient and trust that Christ knows what He's up to.

So there is my honesty.  I'm sorry if it's not super coherent- I'm trying to last 15 more minutes, until 12:30 am, so I can wake Jason up for work but I am tired that my body literally aches.

On a quick happy note, I finally got my Christmas presents from Jas!  UPS was waaaaaaay behind, but I can't bash 'em since all of the overtime hours are helping ensure that we'll be able to pay our bills next month (Jason is losing his day job... I hadn't mentioned that before, but that's a tough one right now, too).  I'm rather happy about "what brown can do for you".  Anyway, I received a camera case and tripod for our new camera (if you don't recall, the camera was purchased with birthday money in a Black Friday deal), the Anne of Green Gables series, and two Calphalon pans to add to my growing collection (I have 4 now- sweet!).  I asked for the first three things, but the pans were all him- I had mentioned wanting them and he remembered and bought them for me!  So thoughtful :)  Speaking of presents, we really need to mail all of the ones to the Missoula fam since we weren't able to go.  Something else to put on my to do list... good thing my man works at UPS, yah?

I'm done now.

Until next time... hasta kids.