Normal Girl

There are moments when I look at myself in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at me.  The person looking back is strong, healthy, thin, confident.  Even after 19 months at this daily effort at being fit and healthy, I sometimes forget that that is who I am now – Fit. Healthy. Strong.

I’ve never been a “thin” person – not even as a child.  I’ve written before, now almost an entire YEAR ago, how I still felt like the “fat girl.”  I’m so glad that I don’t feel that way anymore.  I truly do not.  I’ve worked really, really hard to change how I view myself in the last year, and I think I’ve been successful.  But on the flip side, I don’t feel like the “thin girl” either.

****

When I went shopping with a friend over the weekend, the sales associate was selling some pants to my friend that I’d already chosen to buy for myself and she said, with a nod in my direction, “she has on the S/M, but she’s built like my daughter and is tiny.”  TINY.  No – that’s not me.  I looked around to see who they were talking about, and yes, they were talking about me.

I’m not tiny.

****

Years and years ago (2006!), when my friend came to visit me for my 30th birthday and I’d just wrapped up my first big weight loss (15 pounds at the time), she tossed her jeans in with my laundry and she wanted me to hang them to dry (this was before I started hanging all of my jeans to dry – thank you, Husband, for teaching me that!).  I remember hanging them up and seeing the size – size 8 in Gap – and thinking, “man alive, those look small.  I’ll never wear jeans that small.”  I didn’t set any goals from it, it was a simple observation and thought – but a memorable one.

Today, while picking up the closet, I hung up some jeans and – I’m serious here – I looked at them and thought they were my friend’s jeans.  It was a total and complete flashback to my laundry room in my old townhouse.  These jeans were small.  They were, dare I say it?, tiny.  And they are… mine.

****

It’s weird to me, to be honest, that I’m wearing a 4/6 in all brands of jeans.  It’s weird to me that my muscles show in photos when I’m not flexed.  It’s weird to me that I sometimes need tops in a size small so I don’t drown in them.  It’s just… weird.  I’m happy about it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s surreal most of the time.  I don’t see myself as the “fat girl” anymore, but I don’t see myself as the “thin girl” either.  I just see myself as the “normal girl” now.

And that’s better than where I was a year ago, so I’ll take it  🙂