Things That I Miss

To qualify for the medical treatment I need (yes, we’re still on the topic of hip replacement), I was forced to lose weight.  Setting aside my fury over the fact that weight was used to exclude me from life-saving healthcare with little medical evidence in support of the policy (and clearly, I cannot set that aside), I immediately set to work limiting my food intake.  It’s a hard world to live in for a woman who loves to cook and feed people, but it is the world I am currently living in and will live in until the day I get the hip that I need.  I miss the world of intuitive eating - where I could eat when I was hungry and choose the food I craved.  Salads with homemade dressing?  Yes, please. Grilled veggies with burrata?  Coming up.  A cookie or two after supper?  Help yourself. The occasional icy cold Coca-Cola?  Sure enough. 

Instead, I drink water and eat small portions of food - 800-1200 calories a day - and think of nothing but food, even if I am not hungry.  I hate this existence - and yes, that’s a strong word - because for me it is accompanied by immeasurable self-loathing and obsessive calorie counting that finds me frantic with worry that I should not eat at all.  Or should throw up what I do eat. And the fact that I am doing this because medicine has arbitrarily defined me as too fat for medical care well…..let’s just say that doesn’t ease the problem of self-loathing.  I miss so many things: liking myself and valuing my body’s strength, the ability to make a new recipe without considering the calories involved, the endless mental space to imagine instead of obsessively fret about food.  The other day I made cookies for the 7th grade and I would have loved to eat one.  I didn’t because I was petrified to slip from food restrictions in advance of my appointment with the surgeon.  So add that to the things I miss - not the cookie, but my rational brain - one cookie would not a disaster make.  I miss being able to enjoy the food I eat.  I miss being able to have a treat when I want it without consuming fear that one cookie stands between me and independent living.  I miss the way body positivity and the HAES movement made me feel like my BMI was the least interesting thing about me.  These days, my BMI is the only interesting thing about me.  It’s brutal to miss being a person who genuinely liked herself, full stop.  When you add in the dreadful limits that exist in my physical abilities as I live with this painful hip, it’s a wonder that I am still fighting for my life back.  But, damnit, I am fighting.  And I deserve to exist.