A life which requires less of me.

I feel fat. There are two reasons for this—One: I am stressed. Two: I am fat.

People here aside from being friendly, relaxed, and “helpful” are generally fit and thin. I really want to be thin, not just thin, you know…skinny-bitch thin. I think that would be great! I’ve always thought that losing 20 pounds would pretty much solve all of my problems—everything including our rotten plumbing, which caused a pipe to burst in our bedroom sink. That’s a story for another time. (Who, by the way, thought it was a brilliant idea to carpet bathrooms here?)

Yes, I feel confident that my weight loss could single-handedly right all wrongs. Silence neighbors, create a robot-army of deliverymen, and loosen the death-grip our landlady has on her purse-strings. It could solve world hunger and reverse global warming. There is pretty much nothing that my personal blubber-reduction could not set straight.

With all that riding on a simple commitment to diet and exercise, why wouldn’t I? The answer is simple. It’s never been a true priority. I never wanted it that badly, even with all the good it could cause.

If I did not wake up everyday and look a my extra belly roll, if I didn’t examine the baggage hanging off of my arms with a loving little flick, if I couldn’t pinch my sides and know there was plenty more of me than I, or my husband needed, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

Until now, after a shower, I could slip into something cozy (read: tent-ish), which covered most of my flaws and at least sheltered the rest from the naked eye. The flaws were just mine (and the unfortunate mirror’s). Obviously, it is no secret from society that I am not a size 6. But somehow, I felt that undercover of sweaters, long-sleeves, and fleece the exact magnitude of me could be disguised. Fashion which gives new meaning to security blanket.

Here everyone is out in the open. Everyone, every flaw, is exposed. It is so damn sunny and it is so damn hot and it is so damn NOT a place for sleeves. You would think with all the sweating, I might have lost a pound or two. But the more places I go and the more people I see, I feel myself growing. I feel fat rolls tumbling down my back and cellulite flopping between my toes. I am experiencing chubby armpits and chunky knuckles. My neck is bulging. Everything keeps expanding. The more, slight, waify, bronze, blond beauties I witness, the larger the girth of my being compounds. It is no longer my little secret tucked into stretch-denim capris, it is beyond forgiving cuts and support-fabrics—I am Mount Mickimoto.

I don’t know when I will begin the trek to conquer this mountain. I need guides, and gear, and I suspect, a donkey. You don’t find a sherpa for this adventure in the phonebook. It is going to take time. But time is on my side, because either I change my priorities or Fall changes the weather. Either way, you’ll be seeing less of me in the future.