Last night, I got the idea to log in to an old photobucket account that I hadn’t looked at in a long time. I found some great old photos of Captain M, my sister, my friends. Good times.
Then I opened the folder named “Me”. I don’t have many photos of myself… I’ve always considered myself fat and unphotogenic, for as long as I remember. So I avoid cameras like the plague.
I found a photo I took at the very literal beginning of our relationship. I was 21 years old and in South Korea for 3 months on TDY(temporary duty assignment). I don’t remember why I took it, maybe I was showing off my tattoos for Captain M? But it’s a 3/4 body shot from the back, in BDU pants and a grey sports bra. I haven’t seen this photo in a long time, but it shocks me, because it’s nothing how I remember.
I had an absolutely smokin hot figure. Hourglass. Little waist, curvy hips. Pale flawless skin.
How on earth did I ever think that was fat or ugly?
I couldn’t go to sleep after that. I just sat up thinking about how much I wasted that body. I wasted it by hiding it behind baggy clothes. I wasted it by complaining to Captain M about how much I weighed, or how something didn’t fit right. I wasted it by not trying at all to maintain it once I was done with the Army.
A lot of things contributed to the fat mentality. I was always just a pound or two heavier than the standard weight range that was considered “normal”, enough that they needed to pull out the tape measure. The tape measurements always came out within the “normal” BMI range, which meant “not overweight”, but I still got counseled that I needed to lose weight. It made me feel like a fat ass, even though I had little fat to speak of except my hips and boobs.
I also had a male coworker for a while that constantly talked about rail thin girls, his preference, and called any woman with curves a fatass. I don’t mean fat curves, I mean curve curves. Pretty sure he considered Selma Hayek a cow, that’s just how this guy was. He never said that to me specifically, he treated me like a little sister, but I still took it personally.
But really, I’d been thinking of myself as fat for a long time. I don’t know why it started, but I’ve always been sensitive about my weight. The only point in my life where I was chubby was in elementary school, and I don’t think I was bullied for it, despite the coke-bottle glasses that accompanied that phase. Not that I can remember, anyway.
That photo… I was running 3 miles a day for cripes sake. Some days I did PT twice a day because I was so self conscious about it. I starved myself at times. I was nowhere close to overweight. I was fit, hot, and beautiful.
I’m getting closer to being a good shape again, but I’ll never look like that again. Too many childbirthing war wounds. Too many years on this earth.
Ladies, wasting the pretty isn’t just about wasting your youth sleeping around, or wasting it in a relationship with a loser. It’s also about being able to recognize the youthful beauty you have, and maintaining it as long as you physically can. I really wish I would have.
