Kissing the Fat

From Thanksgiving until New Year's I don't eat as healthy as I'd like. I wish my intentions to not have white sugar and white flour in the cupboard handy to bake with, were sustainable. I indulge because the rituals of baking for the holidays overcomes my desire to be healthy. It's an emotional thing. Nothing rational about it. I love making and baking the traditional goodies we grew up with. It makes our home homier. It also makes me gain weight. I cease to be diligent and on purpose. Or care about my health.

Around New Year's I start feeling seriously obese. An unfixable failure. Appalled to look in the mirror.

The spiral happens. The grosser I feel, the more self loathing happens, I think it doesn't matter if I have one more ____.

If you've never had a weight problem, you might not understand. I beg your compassion anyways.

What happens is that the more bloated I feel, the less I want to be active. The more unwell I feel, the more lethargic my mind becomes. Desire for anything becomes inactive. I start to hibernate emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically. Metabolism shuts almost all the way off.

The bottom line is that I finally don't care if my hair is greasy a few days longer, or there are a few days in between showers. And the spiral continues, gaining fuel and momentum, a deadly ennui.

The worst part is that I stop feeling attractive or desirable to my lover. The distaste that I feel for myself, I project onto him, falsely. I don't want him,  nor do I want him to want me  - because of my fat uglies. It makes no sense because the history we both have with weight issues should remind me we've loved each through thick and thin. I forget.

Maybe it was the extra doses of vitamin D? Or the special light Loverby got me for Christmas? We sit in front of it for thirty minutes a day while we read something together. It must be restoring my equilibrium. I wanted him. I wanted him to want me.

Dr. Kevin Lehman's famous quote about how "you can't make good sheet music if showers aren't taken first" echoed in my mind. I cleaned up. Shaved. Moisturized. Washed my hair. Perfumed. Wanted to wash the bed clothes. Felt a little dangerous. Enticing. Flirtatious. Shy. Shameless.

Our marriage bed is a safe place. The safest.

I could say that this is figurative so as not to shock you, which it could be, but I would be lying: Loverby kisses my fat, the parts that feel ugly. The parts that make me want to hide and be ashamed. 

It makes me beautiful. Again. And the more beautiful and loved I feel, the more I want to be active and creative. The more desirable I feel, the more desire I have - for everything. The more care is shown me the more care I want to take of myself. But, it is essential that I don't hide from this wondrous, life giving love.

The opposite of bad isn't good. It's loved. 

Beloved, let us love one another. What if we in essence, on a regular basis, kissed each other's fat?