Humans Change

So, I put my “honey-moon” bathing suit in the Good-Will bag today.

I keep telling myself “next year I’ll be able to fit back into this – or maybe next year” and how proud I would be with a before and after photo showing how much I am still the same person I was in 2008 as I am in 20–whatever.

I have had multiple opportunities to throw this bikini out. Countless conversations in my mind, but this last week pushed my resolve.

I was measured at the doctor (I do not weigh myself anymore because negative triggers abound in life, and that is one less one I could care about affecting my day to day self).

Due to my current employment environment & schedule, the aftereffects of a poor gym and work-out ethic since leaving my last employment… I am back to the upper end weight zone that I have been in my life.

240 lbs*

Fun Fact: We take from Roman libra (ie. lb) for the American pound measurement

When I saw this lb number in Wisconsin (2014) I back-pedaled as soon as I could, making every effort to make good choice habits for improving my day-to-day routines and health. I’d lose 5 lbs, maybe 10 lbs, and then a family get-together, a responsibility, or just the traditional holidays and their intertwined foods would come to mess* any regularity up or any edge I might have had on losing weight.

Note: This does not take into account any unforeseen drama or trauma that lead to excess caloric consumption

To be fair, I kept my weight constant from January through April of this year (2021). Being trained in a new occupation or position is stressful in my current line of work so I am impressed I did not waver in weight.

Perhaps it was the start of T injections again in late January – providing less mood swings.

Perhaps it was because I finally had gotten the position and training I was hoping for these past 18 months.

Perhaps it was because this new position was just as fun and satisfying as I had hoped it would be.

Perhaps it was because financial stability is a reality.

Perhaps it was a great many things, if I had the time now to think…

The point I am coming to, though, is that humans change. Time passes, we grow, we age, we DIE. These are givens and part of life.

So why is it that society conditions us into thinking that “good things stay the same” – and hence if you are changing to varying lengths or degrees — this is not a good thing?

Cannot good things “get better” or “improve”? Or dare I say… that good things can also change? What is it to say which is good or bad and to what degrees they are allowed to alternate or change?

I see overweight people – even obese people (knowing from a personal level that one can be obese and not seem or even look like it much of the time) – many of these people I accept – they are part of the world, they can live their lives — as THEY ARE.

Why can’t I? Mentally there is logic and leaps that I am unable to compute to organize to collate. I cannot seem to accept myself.

What if I could accept myself. Even my dreaded numbers:

200, 210, 215, 220, 230, 235, … 240 (or even more)

Could I accept that I might weigh this and still be beautiful?

Still be deserving of love and affection?

Still be allowed to exist in this world without reproach?

To not be judged, pitied, or ridiculed by intimate family members?

By friends?

By coworkers?

By classmates?

By colleagues?

By health experts???

So, yes, humans change, that is part of life.

As a new friend in a new community once told me when I came out about my change in gender and sexual identities:

The only things in life that do not change are metal, rocks or dead. Are you any of those things? Change is good and natural. Embrace it.

You are accepted. Even as you change, you are acceptable. You are you.

As my counselor M told me, my homework is for me to be:

Unapologetic-ally, You.