Society sure can put a lot of pressure on a person to look a certain way, but for me, society takes a back seat to how much pressure I put on myself.
After I graduated from high school, I decided to join the military. I chose the Air Force and made my way to the recruiters’ office. I don’t remember his rank, but I remember his name and I remember all the things he didn’t tell me I was getting myself into.
Before I got to raise my hand and swear to defend this great country, I had to meet physical standards as well as take the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) exam. By the way, I don’t recommend taking the ASVAB hung over. You may just wind up with a score of 12 in mechanics like I did. Aren’t you glad they didn’t let me work on the aircraft?
With the ASVAB behind me, it was time to go to the United States Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) and take my physical. They bused me to the nearest location and put me up in a hotel for the night along with several others trying to get into the military. The next morning they served you breakfast and that day you went through their physical exam requirements and if you passed you got your enlistment date.
It took me 3 times to meet the physical standards. I was overweight the first two times. I can remember very vividly being told that I was wasting their time and I would only get one more chance to make the weight standards. The third time, taking their suggestion on not eating the breakfast they offered, I finally made the weight standards with 2 pounds to spare.
Weight has always played a big part in my life. I’ve let it define me for most of my life. In high school, despite being what I would call skinny for me, the boys called me thunder thighs. Not all of them, just a handful, but that was enough. So after graduation and with 18 being the legal drinking age back in 1981, my late nights of boozing it up and eating whatever I wanted started to add up. My weight was 170 pounds and to get in the AF at my height I needed to be 154. So started my diet of ex-lax and water. I was taking up to 10 pills a day. I don’t recommend this diet. It was very dehydrating and unhealthy.
When I finally made it into basic, proud of the weight I lost, I found myself in front of my Technical Instructor (TI) who took one look at me, asked me what my max was and I replied “156 sir,” and he then asked me my weight and I replied “154 sir,” and he shouted at me “you will lose 10 pounds before you leave here.” So much for being proud of my weight loss, humiliation washed over me as I knew every single girl had heard that conversation.
For the next 29 years, weight would be a constant in my life based on the military standards. Weight was really never an issue until the later years of my life, when I started drinking heavily again. I was ashamed of the person I had allowed myself to become. I was under the guilt guillotine from the things I did and I thought that gaining weight would keep the wrong men from wanting me, or more importantly, me choosing the wrong men in an effort to make myself feel better.
You know what I learned…the hard way….you get what you’re desperate for and no matter my weight, I still attracted desperate, only now due to the added weight, I was willing to settle. What a mess!! But that’s ok, it’s a mess that can be used to let others know, this is not the way to go. God did not create us to settle. God created us to thrive and live a life set apart to do His good works. Not when I get to a certain weight, or look a certain way, but just the way I am, right now.
Not gonna lie, it’s hard to see myself in pictures and videos…has been this way all my life no matter how skinny or big I am. I’m trying to overcome this battle and each day I look in the mirror and tell myself, I’m a work in progress, totally loved by my Creator!! None of this is a surprise to Him. So as the Holy Spirit convicts me to eat less, more healthy, and to exercise through my pain and whining, I call on His strength, His wisdom and let Him lead. Well, mostly. Just keeping it real my friends.
Love yourself not because someone tells you to, but because you’re loved by our Heavenly Father and He sees you and He knows you and He understands right where you are! Don’t weigh and measure yourself by anything other than what He says about you. You, my friend are His masterpiece! Hallelujah!!
Blessed to be Broken 