On...Fitness?

So, I'm getting close now. Close to being, if you will, "done" with losing weight. This is a strange and sort of daunting idea, when losing weight is something you've been...doing, something you've been in the active pursuit of, since you were literally what, eight years old? Nine?

The sadness in that is near overwhelming, of course. Actually, it disgusts me. But it's undeniably true, and probably is for an enormous amount of people, so let's just applaud ourselves for all being assholes in that way, shall we?

I know that once I hit my magical number, I'm going to have a lot to say about what this process has meant to me. And believe me, it's meant an extraordinary amount. It's not so much about looking good, although for sure, I am a fan of that. It's more about feeling strong as hell. Feeling strong is something I didn't realize could be so addicting. It's way hotter than feeling thin. It's sexy as shit, honestly.

I realize I'll never be a skinny girl now. All those times in high school that I went to the beach with my friends and lusted after the bodies of the tiny little girls in tiny little bikinis were misinformed at best, plain stupid at worst. That's just not ever, ever going to be me.

But now I realize I'd rather maybe look kind of rounded, less than model-perfect, and be able to run for miles. Which I can do now. Which is still astonishing and maybe always will be. I'd rather have a little bit of a chubby stomach - for the life of me, I cannot get rid of it - but be able to do 30 push-ups without collapsing, or wall squats for so long I leave gross streaks of sweat on the mirrored wall behind me. I often walk into that gym hating myself, loathing my life, so full of poison that I can't breath for the weight of all that self-hatred. I lift weights and do squats and planks for one hour, and I leave that place like a warrior fucking queen. It's amazing. Don't talk to me about addictions to heroin, to liquor, to cigarettes. Mine is the gym. If you try to take it away from me (who would? what a weird thing to say) I will have to plain kill you, and there's a solid chance I won't feel bad about it.

I've lost 65 pounds. For some reason my magic number is 70. At this point it's totally arbitrary, and I know five pounds means nothing, but there is still something to be said for crossing a finish line that you've been staring at in misery for your entire life.

I know now that it's not really about the number. It's not like I'll hit the 70 pound mark - which for me is 142 pounds, which is for sure not skinny at all - and suddenly stop caring. I'll still keep trying to be stronger, faster, better.

But there's a little girl in me crying because she's the fat girl at summer camp who doesn't want to put on a bathing suit in front of the other kids. For her, I want the satisfaction of the number. Just for proof that no matter how late the victory comes in life, it still counts.

Fuck numbers. They matter, they really, really do sometimes, but fuck them anyway.

Something in this process has made me angry. I will have to figure out why.