Armed for bare

No - I didn't make an ignorant mistake on the spelling of "bear" in my title.  I'm here to talk arms - not weapons/arms, but upper extremity/arms.  You know the ones - that women of a certain age, and Heaven forbid SIZE, often find to be the bane of their existences.  Especially as the average air temperature begins its annual ascent into the nether realms of the thermometer.

The idea of bare arms causes more than just minor consternation for this blogger.  I know I'm not alone in this, but the level of my bare arm neurosis likely puts me far out from under the bell-shaped curve.  For the last few years, my upper arms have gotten softer and droopier - I hate the term bat wings, but.... yeah.  It fits.

Now I've seen relatively thin women who have that loose skin under their uppers and it's no big deal (to me), but for someone who is about 40-50 pounds overweight, (and who seems to pack on weight in the most obtuse places) the loose hanging skin is icky.  I don't particularly notice it on others, nor do I judge it in any way, but on myself, it seems like I can literally feel it from the inside.  As long as I'm wearing a top with 3/4 length sleeves or at least all the way to the elbow, I'm unaware of these extra bundles I'm carrying.  But the minute I put on a mid-upper arm length sleeve or shorter (translate:  comfortable), I feel totally uncomfortable and hyper-visible in my fatness.

For these last few years, I've firmly (or flaccidly) refused to wear any shirt that didn't have sleeves to the elbow or below.  I recall being at my youngest son's college graduation last year, sitting out in the beautiful quad in 90 degree humidity, with my 3/4 length top on.  It looked great with my capris, until about 10 minutes in when I was so sweaty that the shirt was damp.  And I was miserably hot.

So here we are again with another heat wave bearing down, and I'm back in the hell of hating some part of myself.  Well guess what?  I'm tired of it.  I'm on a mission to de-sleeve myself (or at least shorter-sleeve) when  it's hot.  I'm tired of looking for clothes and not even considering anything that isn't 3/4 length sleeved.  I'm tired of looking in the mirror and seeing my arms as they are and honestly believing that someone who weighs 100 pounds more than I do looks better than I do because their arms aren't as bad as mine.  I'm tired of it all, and I'm earnestly trying to find self acceptance where I am now, along with the sincere desire to get to a leaner or firmer place.  But at age 58, there's a limit to how firm I'm ever going to get again.  Accept and find peace or hate myself and find endless misery that I keep bottled up inside.

I'm done.  Or I'm trying to be done - with all that body dysmorphia.  Because I know that while I'm overweight, I'm fortunate to be 5'9", which helps a little.  I currently wear size 1x or 16s.  Occasionally an 18 depending on the manufacturer and style.  Yes these are big sizes, but they are numbers.  They don't reflect in anyway who I am, how I treat people, if I'm worthy of love - or anything else other than I could stand to lose some weight.  No one else ever condemns me or judges me for my body (that I'm aware of) - and it's simply time for me to stop.  Despite my weight(and my upper arm), I can walk 5 miles pretty easily;  I have a physically challenging (at times) job that I manage without issue, and generally I get around very well and with plenty of energy.  I'm eternally grateful for this and I intend to continue to strive to get into better shape.  But I'm OKAY just as I am.

This has been on my mind for the last few weeks, but what prompted me to write about this morning is that I noticed 3 different women at work this morning in a way I hadn't before.  All 3 are attractive, neatly groomed and well dressed, and all probably about the same level of overweight as I am.  And All 3 happen to be wearing sleeveless tops (one a dress), and they all have big arms.  BIG arms.  And they look fine.  Just people among people.

That's what I want to be.  I already am that, but I have to take the intellectually certainty and allow it into my heart so that I can move that much closer to joining the human race and just being another bozo on the bus; another grain of sand of the beautiful beach.  This is the biggest inside job ahead of me, but I'm determined to bring that knowledge of my okay-ness into my essence.  And I'll be doing lots of wall push-ups while I'm working on it!