"I have nothing to wear"

It happens to me every time I try to get dressed. I stare into my closet disdainfully for awhile and then loudly proclaim "I have NOTHING to wear!!!" My husband stares at me as if I have lsot my mind and then looks into the closet behind me as if all of my clothes have been stolen in the past five minutes. "What do you mean? You have enough clothes in here to dress an army.", is his reply.

The truth is, he's right. I never wanted to admit it, but he is. I shop and shop and shop and buy new clothes all the time. My closet is so stuffed that I had to relocate all of my dresses, dress pants and jerseys to the closet in my office. Yet, whenever I have to get dressed I cannot find anything I want to wear. I change fifteen times and get so frustrated I want to go out in a trashbag, or maybe purchase several different colored mumus.

So I began to ask myself why this keeps happening to me. The answer is that it is not my clothes that are the problem at all. I have tons of nice pieces of clothing, most of which have never been worn outside of my house. The problem is not that I do not like my clothes, I like every last piece of clothing I own, that's why I purchased it.

No, the problem is not that shirt with the sparkles that bunches up and makes me look fat.The problem is that I don't really like my body. I could put the most expensive, prettiest shirt on and still not like it because I don't really like what is under it.

Now this could just become about weight and about losing it, but I think that it is deeper than that. I don't just need to lose weight and look better in the millions of clothes I own (which ironically won't fit me if I do lose weight), but I really need to learn to like myself even if I have a few extra pounds to lose. The realisty is I have to get dressed, and maybe I can stand to lose a few pounds, but that doesn't mean I can't still look nice. It doesn't mean I can't like myself. We all have faults, we all have thins to improve upon. Just because I may have that second piece of chocolate cake does not make me unworthy of liking myself. I am a human being, I am real. I like food. So what? People who say they don't like dessert are just lying to themselves anyway.

I'm tired of society telling me that because I'm chubby I should walk with my head down and think poorly of myself. More than that, I refuse to let myself feel that way anymore.

I'm going to get healthy because I want to be healthy, and I want to watch my kids and grandkids grow up and be able to participate in things with them. I will still do that. I will still focus on getting healthy and losing weight. I'm just going to refuse to not love myself anymore. Because I matter. Because that jerk who thinks I'm not worth their time or snickers when I walk by because I'm heavier doesn't matter. Because I am a pretty kick ass person, and even when I lose weight and am healthy, I'm still going to be a kick ass person, just a lighter one.