Monday, March 3, 2014

If You Want To Be With Me You Will.....

"Will you meet me after work?"

"Sure!"  I responded excited to see my gorgeous man again.

Surprise boy was by no means gorgeous in any of my friends view.  He had this adorably large crooked nose that my friends sometimes made fun of me dating him for.  He also was on a dance team.  I actually respect male dancers a lot.  They go through a lot of flack, but performances would not be the same to attend if there were not male dancers to play the important role they do.  Because of the whole dance thing my friends came up with the idea that his nose must be like a mini rainbow or something like that... I can't remember the details of what they said.  They didn't want me to date him so they were trying to tease me by mocking him.  I am not the kind of person that believes in secrets from the ones I love.  I told him about their mockery, and we made the most of it... He got a nickname we only used off and on of rainbow boy from me and the longer we were together the more I fell in love with that nose that was so utterly mocked.

After I was done working my shift at one food restaurant I drove over to the fast food joint that Surprise Boy was finishing his work shift at.  When he finished clocking out I met him in the parking lot and we hugged before getting into the car.

"I love you.  I want to spend forever with you and make this work," exclaimed Surprise Boy.

Those sweet words were just how I felt in return.

"There is some things we need to work through that I've been thinking about if we really want to make this work though."

Ok... good... he wants to work through some things with me.  We can battle anything if we do it together.  This will be good.  I was all up for what he thought we needed to work on and clinging to every word.

"You might not understand why I chose the things I did that need to be done or fixed.  I have my reasons though.  They may sound shallow but the reasons behind them are very logical.  When I get married I need to marry someone who is financially responsible and motivated to achieve their goals..."

My head was kinda spinning at this point.  What was he talking about.  Of course financial responsibility and the ability to set and attain goals were important and good traits... what was he getting at?  He said a few more traits of what he wanted in a wife and somehow those fade further into my memory as just part of the onslaught of requirements.

"First off, I can't marry anyone that has debt.  Before we can really be together I need you to be completely out of debt.  My sister married with credit card debt in the picture and they have spent years trying to pay it off.  It has affected how quickly they were able to try to have kids and has been the biggest challenge in their marriage.  I can't do that."

I totally understood that debt would be something he wouldn't want to take into marriage and he knew that in the months that we were broken up in an effort to become more of what he wanted, with my first credit card I purchased many new clothes, my first earings, my first real salon visits with eyebrow waxes and beautifully layered haircuts.  These were all things I noticed that he noticed in other girls... I wanted to be the end all be all to him so I essentially gave myself a long term makeover, one little piece at a time.  I went out with friends and had fun in an effort to forget about our break ups too... all this added up on my card fast.

He knew that I had a credit card and was making payments at this point.  Why not say we should try to pay it off before the final countdown of a wedding.  That makes sense to me.  He was not exactly saying that though.  He was basically saying that no one could know we were together and we would have to essentially break up until I handled my debt myself.  As if my debt made me unworthy of him.

I look at it now... Its a joke.  I only had a balance of $2,800.  That isn't even a semester of college to pay off and I could have paid it off in as little as around 3 months if I didn't have any other expenses at the time.  If he had cared more he would have also said we'd work together and offered to help little bits at a time.  I've had to work for much more than that now that I've faced opening my own business, going to much more college, and having a family.  It seems so silly.

I was very surprised by what he had to say but I responded to it as ok... that is a no brainer and I can do that.

"Another thing is that you have always wanted to be skinnier..."

Seriously using that against me?  Every girl wants to be skinnier!  Plus I was a healthy weight but my mom would always tell me that no guy would love me if I didn't lose weight.  She thinks every girl should be 110 lbs. which is so unhealthy for my height.  He knew how much her comments hurt me and how I didn't have the highest self esteem about my weight... now he was using it against me.

"For us to really be together and make it work I need you to lose that weight that you've always wished you didn't have.  I know this sounds superficial but its really not for a superficial reason.  I need to know that you are willing to work hard till you achieve your goals.  I've never seen you work to lose that weight."

Hearing him say these words made something click off in me.  He didn't know me that well if he didn't know that I cherished setting and accomplishing goals.  When I told him of my mothers words and how much I secretly wanted to look like a slim model I was saying it out of hurt.  All I wanted was to be validated as beautiful the way I was.  Deep down I knew I was beautiful, I just had some insecurities about whether the world saw me that way.  My goal really was never to get anorexic skinny... It was for others to see me the way I had seen myself back when I was touched by God's love.  I wanted him to show me and tell me how dumb that was and how perfect I was just being me.  Talk about backlash.

I am kinda obsessed with exercise equipment, elliptical machines, weight training equipment, treadmills.  I have tons of fun on them and for a long time as I dated Surprise Boy I was in a weight training course.  I think my body was healthy where it was at, I had been the same weight for 5 years.  If you're body is healthy it won't need to lose weight by exercising more.  This was such a joke.

I was so emotional that my eyes were welling up.  All I could hear was "you need to lose weight"... I was not good enough for him.  All those times when he said I was the most beautiful girl in the world... they were just playing me, stringing me along.

He had a thing where he was around dancers a lot (a much different build than I am.  Yea, they were typically skinnier but they were smaller in every way including cup size.  I was a more medium build, average waist, with a very large chest.  I don't know if it even occurred to him that a body type with a large chest wouldn't ever look quite the same as a body type that was so petite over their entire body.

"Another thing...."

The rest of his rules were all things I had to do myself.  Nothing to work on together.  We broke up that night.  He said he couldn't take me back until I fit all those things.  I left mistified and more hurt than I had ever been before.  To this day some of his words from that night randomly pop into my head to make me feel insecure about myself.

Lo and behold, I did start an exercise program with a girlfriend right after that.  It was fun.  My body type never changed though.  He kept talking to me and would say things that hurt so deeply that I can only remember the pain.  I still wanted to be with him so badly, and with my loyal nature I didn't even find anyone else remotely attractive.  I eventually just thought that maybe one day he'd get over it all and we could be together.

Surprise Boy told his friends that he needed to experience every type of girl before settling down so that he could know for a certainty who he would be happy with.  Deep down I know he would have been happy with me had we never entered into this mind frame and started hurting each other.  I never intentionally hurt him, like it felt he did to me, but I know he was hurt by the break up.  Maybe in ways I'll never know or understand.

I found myself in a place where if people mentioned my weight be it a gain or a loss I would get quite defensive and angry.

I am not my weight.  I will never try to lose weight again.  I will not accept those who judge me by my weight as trusted friends.  I was very vocal in the fact that people who cared about weight rather than health were being stupid and judgmental.  I threw away my scale and still only rarely look at it after close to 10 years.

While trying to become healthier, after having three children that added on lots of weight, I ate a lot of health promoting foods in a great meal plan I created.  I lost 80 lbs in only 6 months, making me feel much more normal again.  Dropping so much fat so quickly drew me to watch the scale during that time, but now that its not dropping more (as I'm pregnant again) I once again have no desire to see a scale.  What really matters is that I feel good.  Muscle weighs more than fat anyway, and I'm happy having plenty of muscle weight.