Life as I know it...

More surprising than my confessions of a fat girl, or being pathetic in love, is the one I'm about to tell you. I am shy.   I realize that this is a little hard to believe if you know me, especially if you've only known me as an adult. I'm not exactly the poster child for being shy. I'm not quiet, I don't scare away from social or public situations. I'm not timid and I am reasonably OK at conversing and public speaking. All of that is true, and yet I'm really shy. Painfully shy. I would rather stand in front of 100 people public speaking rather than sitting down to a one-on-one conversation. Now that's terrifying! I can work 50 hours a week and not blink an eye, I can be put on the spot to explain some concept to roomful of strangers and not care, I can dance like no one is watching just about anywhere, but make me have a conversation with one person about personal stuff and I'll freeze. I used to describe myself as an introvert stuck in an ext

Let me start by saying that I have no business writing about love. There are some things in life that I know a little about. I know about weight gain and about weight loss. I know a little something about music, I know how to win a hand at euchre and I know how to make my hair look like I actually have more than 8 hairs on my head. Love, on the other hand, that remains a mystery to me in some ways. I also am painfully aware that I simply don't love myself. Those are hard words for me to write. I blame the world for a lot of the anger and hate that is shoved onto fat people but the truth is I put a lot of that on myself. I have to figure out this love thing if I'm going to figure out this Lisa-thing and the weight-thing. I often wonder “what's love got to do with it” and I think the answer is everything, love has everything to do with it. I love people readily, intensely in fact. Once you've worked your way into my heart, I want to keep you around forever and

They say “sharing is caring” and I believe that’s true. I can't be certain why I shared my last post but I'm happy I did. I was terrified, I felt exposed. I felt naked. I felt like I had put my insides on display for the world to read and judge. For weeks before I posted it I debated sharing my story mainly because I couldn't figure out exactly what my motivation was to share. I had to be sure it wasn't about me and what I needed. Was I going to share it just so all the wonderful people I have in my life would say how brave I was? My purpose couldn't be that self-serving, surely I was considering this blog for a greater reason than to fulfill some selfish need. The truth is, I really wanted other people to know that they aren't alone in the struggle. I wanted all of us, myself included, to stop looking at each other and assuming we know each other’s story. I wanted us to start talking. I have a kind and generous village of people in my life who deliver compli

I don't entirely understand why I'm feeling so compelled to write this and even less certain why I'll share it. There are few topics I hate talking about more. I'd rake child poverty or communicable diseases for $200 before talking about how I look or how I feel about how I look. Blah. It's not a new journey for me, as it isn't for most woman. There hasn't been a dramatic event to make this important to document right now and yet I can think of little else at the moment. I don't have any earth-shattering answers about weight or body image but just a whole lot of questions.. But life really is all about questions and finding the answers to them, so here goes... There seems to be a lot of attention on “weight” at the moment. Embrace your weight... lose weight... gain weight... We have always been a “weight” obsessed society, this is hardly a new concept. From a time when women tried to gain weight to be curvier to now where they will do just abo