Birthday Bulge

"If you don't eat yourself, you will explode instead..."
-Goldfrapp, Eat Yourself

So, yes, my birthday was this past Saturday.  And it sucked.  That's pretty much all there is to it.  I had to work and working in that hellhole always ruins my day.  I'm not going to get into it because it seems like every year I always bemoan my birthday and it's just tired now.  I know I'm slowly (or not so slowly) turning into one of those people who always has to criticize Thanksgivings and Christmases, who has to be a buzz kill and take a steamy dump on everyone's holiday spirit and I don't wanna be that douche.

And the most annoying part?  I had to fight to get some time off to do some kind of holiday shopping.  You'd think, working in retail, that getting my Christmas shopping done wouldn't be a big deal but when you're in that kind of environment all day and you finally get off work, the last thing you want to do is to jump back in that environment in a different location.  So, since my supervisor wouldn't give me my birthday off, I asked for two days during the prior week.  She wouldn't give that to me, either, so I had to give her my pimp hand until she finally relented.

So, after having to claw and scratch to get some time off, I went out of town with my mom to finally get started on my Christmas shopping.  I bought some things for family and bought some stuff for myself as well.  Let me say, it was incredibly depressing trying on clothes.  First of all, those harsh lights are terrible.  I saw every pore, every pimple, every wrinkle all over my face.  I was hideous.  And then, I tried on shirt after shirt, coat after coat, sweater after sweater and none of them fit.

I've gained so much weight since I've graduated.  I've talked about this before but let's rehash it, shall we?  While I've pretty much gained weight everywhere, it has mostly concentrated to my stomach.  So, when I'm trying on these articles of clothing, if I go to an extra large, the shoulder seams hang off my shoulders and the torso pretty much swallows me.  Go to a large (and sometimes medium) and it fits great in the shoulders but it's too tight around my midsection.  So, I can't win.  And my mom doesn't help because she thinks everything should be big and baggy.  She says all my shirts are too short and too tight if they aren't hanging down to my knees so she obviously can't be trusted with fashion advice.

I just wish I could go into a store and be able to pick out anything and leave.  I wish I could be a shirt and jeans guy.  I layer a lot.  It's not because that's how I like to dress.  Imagine being a fatty wearing two to three shirts (and/or a jacket when it's cold) at any given time.  It's not comfortable.  But, I have to so I can cover up all my fat.  Shirts are made so thin these days that if I were to just wear a shirt, the flimsy material would cling to all my fat rolls.  So, I have to layer so try to provide some decent coverage/camouflage.  Plus, I'm hot-natured so all those layers don't help that whole "fat sweaty guy" stereotype.

Everything looks good hanging on the racks but when I put it over my lumpy body, it looks skewed and warped like an acid trip on my body.  And as I slowly button the shirt, once it gets to my belly and the fabric starts to stretch and I have to suck in to button the jeans and my thighs are screaming, I get depressed.  I want to give up on put on some elastic pajama bottoms and call it a day.  And eat a whole pizza.  Which makes me fatter.  And worsens everything.

It's funny because I know how to lose weight.  I've done it off an on my entire teen years and two separate times I lost a major amount of weight.  And yet, here I am, almost as big as I ever was, starting over, back to zero.  And I can do it again but it just sucks because once I lose all this weight, I'll only be getting back to where I was before I started gaining.  It'll be an accomplishment but I just think of how it won't amount to much because I still won't be where I want to be and I'll have to push myself even harder and be even more disciplined to push past my thinnest and get even thinner.

Bottom line is I will probably always struggle.  I will never be satisfied.  I will gain and lose and gain and lose until I die.  I am too vacant inside and so I fill up on food and that will never change until something else comes along and occupies that void.  I just don't know what that thing will be.  I certainly can't imagine anything taking the place of pasta.

Happy birthday, chunky.  Go have another slice of cake to make yourself feel better and deal with it some other day.  For now, let the food soothe you.  You know it's wrong and it's only temporary but when you're in pain, you don't care about the consequences.  You need that reprieve, that quick fix, that numbness.  You require it to make it through the day.  You need it so bad it becomes all you are.

You consume so much until you're the one being consumed. 

You're eating your problems, eating your fears and insecurities, slowly eating yourself into nothing.  Oh, you'll expand all right but you're just withering inside, smothering everything good, thinning up and drying out until you're brittle and break into thousands of shards.  But, it's all you know.  You're comfortable in your gluttony because it works, however temporary.  And what's the alternative?  If you don't bury it down, it'll erupt within you, take over your body and mind and mouth and you'll simply explode all over everyone and bring them down with your anger, fear and hatred.  They'll see you for who you really are.  And you can't have that.  No, not just yet.