Don't You Judge Me! Nah. Go Ahead

Last night I finished the Rolling Stones Biography by Bob Spitz which has been described as a "doorstop book" in that it contains many pages. Somehow I ripped through it fairly quickly and it wasn't because I couldn't put it down. It wasn't a difficult read and I didn't feel the need to linger in certain places or reread a section that really caught my attention. No startling revelations were to be found. I was impressed though how at the end of the book, the author seemed to be as fan-boyish as anyone else about how Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Ronnie Woods, and until he died, Charlie Watts, managed to survive together through so many seemingly impossible years and arguments and addictions and fame and tragedies, as well as the combination of  two of the biggest egos in rock history, those of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger but I am prejudiced, you know, and believe that of the two, Mick isn't called "Her Majesty" for nothing. 
But it's nothing short of magical that for sixty years these two men have never entirely let anything come between the bond that was created over sixty years ago when they first recognized the blues-lover in the other and began to play that music together. 
And then go on to write the music that, along with the music of the Beatles, defined a generation and still makes us want to dance. 

As you know, I could go on. I'll just say that in July they will be releasing an album of all new material and so they ain't done yet. In fact, they won't be done until they're dead most likely and dear god, if they did sign that pact with the devil at the crossroads that blues players are often said to have signed, let it have been a good deal and give them even more than the eighty two years they've already had. 

Today's harvest. 

Today's successful project. Thirteen pints, all lids having popped the way they should have. 

So what I was thinking about writing yesterday was, well...
Here's what I wrote yesterday evening with more added tonight:

I've been wanting to write more about how this Zepbound experience has been for me thus far. It's odd. I feel shy about it although not ashamed in the least. It's been a year now and I've lost a good amount of weight which is fun in that I can wear things I couldn't have imagined wearing a year ago but the really important thing in my life is how I feel. Emotionally, and physically. 

Emotionally I will just say I am happier with myself which makes me happier overall. I know that our culture is obsessed with thinness and that no matter what weight we are at we should love ourselves for who we are and not how we look and that judging ourselves or anyone else's looks on their weight is bullshit. 

And...that how we look is NOT who we are anyway. I know that but somehow, no matter how I tried, I just could not. And part of that was knowing that my body was limiting itself in its abilities and capabilities, carrying around extra pounds. 
I used to wake up every morning and just the act of getting out of bed was difficult and painful. My joints were stressed to the point of constant discomfort and I don't think I even realized how many of my physical problems were more weight-related than age-related. I would groan and I would moan, every time I got out of bed and every time I got up from a chair, too. 
Things just fucking hurt. 
So when I wake up now and swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand up and nothing really hurts it is like a daily miracle. I know I've talked many times about how it feels to be able to get up from the ground when I've been kneeling in the garden with such ease that I don't even realize I'm doing it until I'm standing up but I still can't believe the difference. 
I'm not saying that I can completely go from kneeling to standing with absolutely no support moves but my god, it is so much easier. 
You know what else? 
I think I could dance. 
A little. Maybe. I do dance a little bit, now and then, when no one's around and even that little bit reminds me of the freedom I felt when I danced for real and for true, letting myself go into it fully and without thought. 
I know I will never be twenty again or even fifty but I feel so much lighter in spirit and in body than I have in probably a decade and that ain't nothing. I can bend over and pick up things off the ground with ease. I can get on my knees to look for something under the bed without first having to make a game plan. 
I can look into a mirror. 
You have no idea how many years that I literally did not look into a mirror unless I absolutely had to. 
And of course, that goes back to my self-shaming but it's the truth. I did not want to see what either my face or my body looked like. It wasn't the aging of myself I was aghast at. It was how I did not recognize my very own self. 
Who was that? And who was I? Where was I?
And this is the part that's hard to write about. 
How many times have I discussed what a huge issue thinness was when I was growing up? Twiggy was the ideal. Remember Twiggy? With her startling eye make-up, her pixie haircut, her tiny body with shoulder blades and rib cage almost as visible as if she had no skin covering them at all. 

She was youth, she was as fresh and delicate as a newborn chick. She was the new ideal. 

But I can't blame everything on Twiggy. We were already headed in that direction. Clothing designers chose models who were barely more than clothes hangers on which to display their designs, or, as Hank pointed out to me many years ago, resembled prepubescent boys in their lack of curves, their gangly arms and legs. 
Not very healthy any way you looked at it. 

So there was all of that and for many of us, being thin was one of the only ways we could gain approval, attention. Being the brainy girl who made all A's was seen as something more of a weirdness than an asset. Intelligence was good, yes, but hardly noteworthy. Hey! Even male nerds weren't hugely appreciated at that time. A female nerd? 
You might as well just give it up and join a nunnery. Ain't nobody gonna ask you to dance. 
BUT. You could be smart AND pretty or cute, but to be those last two, you had to be thin. 

At that time in my life I was one fucked-up young woman. Girl. Whatever. I lived in a house where my stepfather terrorized me simply by being in the same vicinity, day and night. My body was something I had an incredibly complicated relationship with. Boys were something I had an incredibly complex relationship with. 
Here. I wrote this in 2011.

"Because my stepfather thought of me as his, he would have been quite happy if I'd been kept in the house forever, a child-nun to keep all to himself, but somehow it had been put in place that when I turned sixteen, I could go out with a boy on a real date, and I'll never forget the first time I went out with a guy, and the Evil One stood there and cried as I left with this football player who had a twisted sense of humor and that perpetual wound over the top of his nose where his helmet rubbed him and my mother thought it was so sweet that her husband loved me so much that he cried when I went out, having no idea the twisted perversion going on his mind.

Or the complete and utter feeling of freedom in mine as I left that house, even if just until ten o'clock when I had to be back in it.

I can't quite describe it. And if I tried, it would go on for days but I'll say this- when I was out and in a car with a boy, my body was my own and my desires were my own and my choices were my own and it was normal and right, whereas in my house the things that went on were certainly not of my control and beyond a doubt, not right in any way."

And all of this added to the whole of my body image. And that led to a bout with disordered eating and that led to more trouble, more problems, more self-body shaming, and so on. And despite everything I came to know about feminism and not having to try and please a man, I never honestly got over all that stuff. 
The only times in my life that I truly loved my body for what it was were during my pregnancies, births, and the period right after the births when I was able to nurse the babies I had managed, with this body, to bring safely to earth. To sustain them. To comfort them. To care more about them than what I looked like. 
Too bad that never lasted although I have always felt a strong sense of pride in what this body managed to do which was to create life. 

But when that magic wore off, I began to be ashamed of the way I looked again. Every time. I felt like a whale. I felt ashamed. And every time I did what it took to lose the weight and sometimes, the ways I did it were healthy and sometimes, they were not. 

So obviously, my weight, my appearance, have always been way too important to me. Inappropriately so. And I've known that but no matter how hard I tried, I could not get out of that mindset. 

And then, I guess when I hit my mid-fifties, sixties, I just could not do it any longer. I could not limit my portions. I could not eliminate certain beloved foods from my diet any more. I had had it. I was done. 
And I gained weight. I still walked, sometimes hours daily. I still tried to choose the best foods and prepare them simply and in a healthful manner. 
But I've never been able to control the constant hunger I've experienced my entire life and I gained weight. 
A lot of weight. 
And I couldn't stand it and yet, I couldn't seem to do what I needed to do to lose it. 

And then came the GLP-1's and the reports of the results of people taking them were unbelievably positive. And finally, after a few years of reading about them I gathered up my courage and asked my doctor about them and he was very positive, saying that he'd seen some amazing results in his patients. Now this is a doctor who never told me that if I'd lose weight my blood pressure might be better, my cholesterol might be lower, my joints might be less painful. 
Never once. He knew I already knew all of that and he was quite aware of the fact that I was far from ignorant about diet and nutrition. 
So when he said he'd prescribe Zepbound for me, I felt validated. 
And almost immediately after injecting myself the first time I felt the effects. For the first time in my life, I had no desire to stuff myself. I really didn't think I could if I'd wanted to. The drug made it easy to pass up desserts and other tempting foods that do no one any favors. Empty calories just did not appeal to me. 
Does this sound like a miracle drug? 
In my very own personal experience, it has been. 
In one year I have lost a truly significant amount of weight. 
And if I am a shallow and brainwashed woman because I can now look at myself in a mirror and not be unhappy with myself, then so be it. I'm almost 72 years old and I'm not going to change at this point. 

And speaking of being this age, I am not fooling myself when I look in a mirror. I see my skin which is wrinkled and crepey. I see the sagging, proof that gravity has had its way with me. 
And I'm fine with all of that. I have no desire whatsoever to have cosmetic surgery to nip or to tuck. I have earned all of these signs of aging while at the same time, as I said, I feel younger, my body not constrained nearly as much by what it was carrying around. I feel less apt to try and hide in groups or in public. I have more self-confidence. 
Y'all- I am sassier. 

And all because of a drug I take once weekly. And no, like I said, I don't feel shame. I feel like my body, on this drug, is able to tell my brain when I am truly hungry and when I am not. 
And I know it's not as simple as that but it really is as simple as that for me and my brain and my body. 

I would like to add that my husband never once, never ONCE said a word indicating that he thought I could stand to lose a pound or two. He just loved me however I was. He has loved me the way I guess I wish I could love myself. 

Hey! I cleaned my shower today! And guess what? Getting down on the floor was easy as hell. Getting up was too. 
Guess what else? 
I still hate to clean the shower. 

Some things do not change. 

Sigh. 

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on all of this and if you feel the need to educate me in how I could have lost weight without the assistance of a drug or how I am striking a blow against body-positivity, go ahead. You aren't going to tell me anything I haven't thought of myself. 

Love...Ms. Moon