Shaddup Already!
2004-07-25
stuff
Tomorrow is the first day of preplan and for some reason I'm nervous. I don't really know why, unless it's because of all the changes that have happened over the summer. There's a new principal, two new team mates, another portable, new kids. My tummy is all in a knot. Actually, it's more like my bowels because that is where I always feel stress first. I know, too much information, but why should I get all shy now?I am just freaking out probably because of the work I've done this summer on my "issues." I'm not the same person I was last year, but I look the same and I even act the same in social settings. I just recognize some different things about myself. I recognize some HUGE things about myself that I wasn't aware of before.
Sometimes I think I might like to see a therapist, but the last one I trusted to talk to about my eating issues told me all the wrong stuff. She said stuff like, "When you're smaller you can learn to (fill in the blank)" or "you have to be on a diet" Again, the assumption was that I want to lost weight. We've already determined that I want to lose weight, but we've also determined that dieting isn't the way for me to do it. I went in there for help on my emotional issues and she became the voice that usually stays in my head. The "you're worthless because you're fat" voice.
Last week was so difficult at work because the talk so often revolved around food. It didn't just revolve around food, that I could handle, it revolved around how your goodness is determined by what you eat. That is the self-talk I'm trying to get away from and here it was on the outside of my head.
I tried explaining to some people about my work with not dieting, but they so didn't get it. People look at me and hear, "I don't diet," and they think, "Obviously." They don't hear any of the common sense stuff that comes out, unless it fits in with their ideas of "good" eating.
So now I'm going back to school where, at times, I feel like I'm the one in middle school. There are the general cliques and I don't fit in anywhere. There are the people my age, but they are skinny. Apparently, if you're fat, you have no life worth speaking of. Also, people would never dream of taking you out with them nor would they even consider fixing you up with a friend. My god, how could they do that to a friend?
These are the people who also drink and go out to smoky bars. I don't drink, so they assume I make judgements about their drinking. I don't, I just don't like to drink and I don't like smoke.
I don't know if they don't include me because I'm hideous (I'm trying so hard to convince myself that this isn't true, but I'm not having much luck), because I don't follow the crowd or because I have walls up. It's probably the last one, but I put those walls up for a reason. And even when I take some bricks down with people, they still treat me like a leper.
Then there is another clique of newly married people or people with kids still at home. I definitely don't fit in there. People hear me say that I don't want to get married or have kids and they automatically assume that I can't possibly understand their lives.
Finally, there is the clique of older people. They all just treat me like a baby. They tell me all my dreams are stupid and if I ever come close to acheiving them, I'll see how stupid I've been. They lecture me about how to behave at a job (giving me bad advice, BTW), about living up north (my major dream), about money, about my life in general. I have too many pets, I am too heavy, I either don't discipline enough or I discipline too much (that depends on who you talk to). My teaching ideas are doomed for failure and I just don't get my job. Then they tell me I can be snippy. That stuff doesn't bother me so much because it doesn't pour salt on an open, festering wound.
I'm always on the fringes. People seem to like me, but I just don't fit in. It's kind of painful, but I'm not willing to change the things about myself that would make me fit in better. Except my weight, but again, I have a specific path to that. This path does not follow the generally accepted path in our society.
I have a feeling that I'm going to be much more reclusive this year. I have some good friends on staff, but some of them left this year. The others are on the other side of the building from me, but I think I will make a point to meet with these people occasionally. I think I'll be eating in my portable and keeping to myself. I may immerse myself in school activities, so the powers that be don't see me as withdrawing. I just don't know what I want right now.
I have a contract, I have to work for the next 10 months at this school that I'm growing to dread. I'm probably getting all worked up for no reason, but I don't know how to stop.
