Measurement
Down a pound and a half this week. So after last week’s half-pound gain, that’s down one pound exactly.
I used to have great leaders at the meetings I attended at the Muddy Branch location in Gaithersburg, Md. Loved them. Authentic people. I lost 65 pounds with them.
Down here I have yet to love a meeting. I had a lot of fun today because a bunch of new people/returnees showed up and it was like an open-mic night. But it wasn’t perfect.
I’ve gotten the feeling that my meeting leaders here are phony. One seems to like me but the other always seems to be giving me the stinkeye.
One thing I love about Weight Watchers is it is the only place in the world where I am perfectly average. I never aspire to be average anywhere but in a room of overweight people. Attendees range from 100 pounds to 300 pounds, and it blows my mind to feel downright skinny sometimes.
Anyway, the leader was super-nice to me today. And I thought, finally, we’ve connected. Maybe it’s that she sees me coming back and trying my best. Perhaps they don’t really get to know the people who drop in every now and again.
I mentioned I have a favorite girl who weighs me in because she reminds me of my friend Vitamin D and she always talks about vodka. Friend!
Well, the TV wasn’t working today so the leader needed a flipboard from the back room. So she tells my favorite gal, “Since you aren’t helping me to fix the TV, go get the flipboard.” Which grated on my nerves. Since you aren’t helping me? Who says that in front of 50 people?
The gal gets her the flipboard and what she thought were this week’s charts. We tend to have overlapping topics — whatever we started new today, we will follow up on next week and also start the new topic. So, she grabbed the one that started with what we were talking about … but they were next week’s notes.
So the leader went all hissy again and commanded her to “find ones I can actually use.”
Holy cuntballs. Seriously.
I am telling you this boring-ass story to get to the revelation of the day. I have been seeking approval from this woman … craving some sort of camaraderie or connection that will help me to better commit to this journey … and she’s NOT someone I care to look up to.
I don’t know that I’ll switch meetings because she really is a good instructor. But any inclination I had to want to be buddy-buddy with her like I was with some of the Muddy Branch staff? I’ll pass, thanks.
The whole idea behind these meetings is to find kinship. To exchange ideas. To empathize. To celebrate. And I’m not going to let one disappointing morning ruin it. But the bigger lesson here is that those of us who let our minds try to measure us by others might want to look inward and try to best our own selves.
After the meeting, I strolled through a store for a little while. I always have to report home every night and after every meeting, so I tried to sneak in 20 minutes of me time before the next mommy-sitting shift. And I got to apply that lesson in a big way.
I was looking at clothes a size down from where I am, and a woman twice my size pushed her way in to look at the same thing. While I was tempted to say, “Bitch, ain’t neither of us gonna fit in this size,” I had a positive thought to replace it.
That thought: I am OK with the way I look. I really don’t care if someone is skinnier or prettier or tanner or has better hair. Frankly I am quite OK with who I am and so what if I don’t fit into a certain size or certain people don’t find me attractive or otherwise “worthy.” I rock, and mine is the only opinion that matters.