Posts tagged “Confidence

A Game of Chicken with Weight

Posted on February 12, 2017

I have obsessed about weight. In college I abused laxatives. I’ve battled with disordered eating. I said hateful things to myself. I compared myself to women in magazine, classmates, strangers, and, quite possibly, people who didn’t even exist. The lengths I took to keep the bar of how I was supposed to look and what I should weigh just out of reach was staggering. I made it impossible to succeed. As I raise three daughters I feel terror because of all the very real threats in the world, hating ourselves can be the most devastating. I watch them grow, their shapes changing constantly, and each new contour and curve makes me fall more intensely in love with who they are. They have never had a…

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Small Steps to Big Things

Posted on February 17, 2016

I’ve been pretty open about the darkness I’ve experienced over the last 12 months. Looking back, there was never a moment when I thought, “Huh, I only write about shiny stuff here, I should explore the underbelly of parenting, marriage, and self-image.” It has felt right to put it out there. My gauge is how I feel when I lean back from the laptop and scan the letters staring back at me. Am I weeping? Do I feel relief or clarity? Every post is a walk or a run, I’m moving toward something and getting there can be smooth and feel effortless, other times it can feel like I should give up entirely. It doesn’t matter which way it goes down, when I hit…

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No Shortage of Cruelty, Add Kindness

Posted on March 12, 2015

We got a call a few weeks ago from the cable company offering to hook up cable. I explained that we had cut it because it was an unnecessary expense and an unwelcome time suck. The woman chuckled and tried to mention stations that might pique my interest. Having been without cable for a few years, I could honestly say that I wasn’t interested in any of them. Then she mentioned sports. The only time we have ever complained about the absence of cable has been a laundry lament, Sean saying that he wished we could have Sunday games on in the background as we folded laundry or cleaned the house. “How much? I asked her. After some keyboard clicking and a few minutes…

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Tantrums & Deep Breaths

Posted on March 8, 2015

I was getting dressed. It should have been a good day, I’d slept well the night before, I’d been working out, but there it was; a persistent, dull heat and the threat of a tantrum. I was trying to avoid my triggers—don’t grab the top that I haven’t yet donated despite the fact that it always makes me feel hideous. Don’t start my hair or make up before the girls are all set because they’ll interrupt. Don’t decide this is the time to look for the missing necklace. I kept moving through the morning paces, but my thoughts kept banking into a wall of negativity—what I wasn’t doing, what I wasn’t feeling, what I wasn’t getting, and what I was ceasing to believe could ever be. It’s the last one…

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Leave it all on the Field

Posted on February 16, 2015

Yesterday I was in a frenzy to get the house clean, the girls ready, and our gear set for a business trip in the city. The girls were remarkably chill, abandoning their tendency toward tears or anxiety about my leaving. Still, it was nerve-wracking, the ever-present, “Will I be good enough?” rattling around in my head. The strangest thing happened, each time I thought there would be an obstacle—the weather, running late, the weather, texts of a tummy bug at home, the weather—the obstacle didn’t triumph. Three minutes to spare for the train. An extra pair of gloves. A text that everyone went to sleep. A warm bench seat and a wide-screen playing the SNL 40th show. This morning my nerves were operating at…

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