Barbie Unplugged!

Oh it is sooooo nice to get my blog fix early rather than at 6:30 pm!! Finally got home last night and was able to unwind and I realized that I have yet to clarify who is who in my head.........geez! So here goes!

Hmmm, okay now I'm drawing a blank.......really I guess I was born Steph - grew up fat thanks to icecream, vanilla wafers and peanut butter and white bread and gravy. I also ate vegetables and played outside - I mean I wasn't some kid that hibernated and never came out.......I didn't live in a cave or play video games all the time. I played and jumped and swam and ATE - I don't remember ever being thin well except for when I went on Jenny Craig at 14 and lost down to 160 pounds and a size 10 - yeah at 14 I weighed about 210 pounds. You know we did all the thyroid tests and bloodwork - blah, blah, blah. No parent wants to admit that there kid is just fat - there has to be an explanation for it right?? How about the fact that I would eat dinner at my friend's house and then come home and eat dinner.......how about I ALWAYS ate 2 helpings and dessert - how about from birth I think I was sneaking food! Yeah there was a logical explanation all right - I loved food!

So I ate and ate and ate - I got a job at 15, a car at 16 and a license to eat all the time came with that! I worked in a restaurant and got half price meals - woohoo!!! Got off work and ate burgers and tacos.......got a little older and in college I hit the fast food places for every meal - then I got poor and ate mac and cheese/fishsticks all the time - shit that doesn't require a degree in biology to understand that your body can't take all that crap! I remember looking in the mirror and not really seeing fat - just not really seeing anything. I didn't care how I looked, I didn't care how my house looked, my life had no order or structure.......I worked, went to school (sometimes), came home to my crappy apartment and ate. I did laundry only when the clothes were all dirty, my life was littered with dirty dishes and fast food bags........really my life was a mess! There were a series of events that shattered my world........traumatic things that caused much grief - and you all thought I was born with my bitchiness - LOL! So I ate to mask the pain. You know, I could sit here and give a zillion reasons why I was overweight and spend hours trying to justify it but in reality it was what it was........it was a million decisions to eat poorly and it was for a thousand different reasons - I can't go back, I can't change it, the damage was done and yes, some of it is irreversible (well until I have this damn pannus removed - sorry Swizzle - I had to!).

So fast forward - at some point I pulled my head out of my ass........seems like it was permanently lodged there for a while! I had to sing in a Christmas Choir and the largest shirt that the store carried was too small for me - I had to announce my shirt size in front of a whole group of my peers - I was humiliated - I cried, I had to do something and so I did. But this post isn't about my humiliation or my method of madness but rather about who the f**k is who in my ADD, OCD psycho world. So I lost weight and my friends started making mention that I had become a bit more brassy and bold - well the fact that I finally had a plan and knew how to make it work helped and the fact that I had order in my life, FOR ONCE, helped and then of course there was the fact that I felt attractive for the first time in my life!! So I was edgy - I was a bit more bitter that people who wouldn't have pissed on me before now had "time" for me.......like I suddenly evolved and was worthy of their attention......you know what "F" you - now I don't want your damn attention!!! Don't whistle, don't flirt, don't even speak to me if you couldn't have done that before........as if before I didn't know that I was morbidly obese - no really, I didn't need you to point it out to me jackass - I got it - I felt it everyday - my knees fucking screamed it to me when I crawled out of bed so why did you feel it was your duty to make me feel even more out of place???? Those became my feelings - thus Trixie was born - Trixie is brassy and bold and probably a bit trashy for lack of a better word but she allows me to walk just on the edge of the wild side - to push the envelope just a bit. Her personality (God that sounds really wacky) is the one that I turn to when I'm feeling super low about myself - when I'm thinking, "God I am a cow and the ugliest Elsie of them all"..........at that point I can pull out Trixie and my fergilicious hat collection (yeah that was a wierd phase that I went through)......throw on some hooker shoes and strut my stuff - all the while smiling on the inside because all those people that would never have looked before are doing a double take - I feel sexy and beautiful and thoroughly love waving it under the noses of those who spent so much time making me feel less than a person!

Okay that leads to Barbie - hmmmmm, Barbie well she is what I wanted to be, what I thought I would be when I lost all the weight. She is perfect and pretty and popular and drives a vette and is married to Ken and has a poodle and and and.........she represents every little girls ideals of what her life should be - even though I spent most of my childhood chopping off Barbie's hair and breaking her head off.............(sorry mom)! Somehow I got to the "pot of gold" at the end of my weightloss rainbow and the damn leprechaun had stolen it..........there was not perfection there - there were self image issues and saggy skin and a pannus........there were body stockings to hold it in and push up bras and where the hell did this come from type discoveries. Things were NOT as I had expected them to be but rather the opposite. I still didn't feel pretty or popular or loved or accepted - hmmmmm, but not being fat was supposed to be the equivalent of being happy, right??? Uhhhh, get a grip Barbie and snap out of your bubbleheaded fog......being thin didn't diminish the demons.......shit it didn't even quiet them - it just means I've got the ability to live with them for a longer period of time! I had to learn to disassociate food with success/failure/emotion/socializing........I had to figure out that I was worthy, that I was pretty, that I was popular, loved, wanted, needed, WORTHY - thus Barbie was born. Every day I chose to be "Barbie" - not counting the Trixie days but you know what I mean........I keep thinking one day I'm gonna get up and not have to make a conscious effort to love myself but that hasn't been the case yet..........so everyday I get up and look in the mirror and see pimples and puffy eyelids and god help my hair, I see a nightshirt that has chocolate pudding mix stains on it or fingernails with banana pudding crust around them and I say "Good Morning Barbie" - sounds stupid but in my head it works..........it helps me remember that even without my VS red bra, my eyeliner, my super skin tight suck it all in jeans, my big fat sexy hair spray and my ultra teeth whitening toothpaste that, even without all of that, I am the epitomy of Barbie........my Ken doll is balding and has crooked teeth, my poodle is an English Pointer with an obsession to dig all the way to hell, I don't live in a mansion but rather a bomb shelter complete with racoons in the attic, a hole in the living room ceiling, cats that piss on the carpet and a kid that spells mess every where he goes - even with all the "imperfection" I AM Barbie - I have a Ken that loves me and I am beautiful, worthy, loved and wanted - and damnit people like me!!!

So after all that - my advice is remember that you are Barbie - we all are - we are all strong, beautiful, funny, smart women that make this world a better place! I need each of you in a different way and each of you contribute a little of yourselves to make my day better - so in my eyes you're all BARBIES - think of yourselves that way!