The other day I went out to lunch with a co-worker who had given her notice, kinda has a celebratory “last goodbye” lunch. She even paid for my meal unexpectedly.
I had a lovely grilled chicken club sandwich with lettuce and cheese, and fries on the side (I was going to get soup but didn’t like any of their soups). She also had me try a piece of fried asparagus which was heavenly.
Anyway, I’ve always been reluctant to go out to eat. I enjoy going out to eat, I really do, but I am insanely self-concious when I do. When you are as big as me, you feel as if all eyes are on you all the time, judging you. You worry about making sure they have tables and not booths because you know you can’t fit in the booths. You worry about ordering something that is going to make people think “Oh that’s why she’s fat”. You worry about people looking at you walking down the street. You worry about them comparing you with who you are walking in, especially when the other person is so thin. You worry about being out of breath when you get there, or being flushed in the face from the exercise. You worry about the people you are walking with judging you because you walk so much slower than them. You worry about when you come back to work and go up the stairs, how you always have to go into the bathroom to catch your breath out of embarrassment.
It’s so rough, emotionally. Anyway, occasionally I can force myself to go into public, this was one of them.
The walk was nice and slow. I apologized to my co-worker for walking so slow but she didn’t seem to mind. The sun was shining, I tried to shut out the people in my surroundings as much as possible so I wouldn’t catch an odd glance that would upset me.
The restaurant was mostly empty. Good, not too many people to see me and plenty of tables open.
The meal was excellent, of course I noticed how little my co-worker ate compared to me who ate my full dish. Sigh…would she judge me? I dunno…
The walk back to work was nice, she wanted to do some window shopping. I love window shopping, I just never do it cause of the 10,000 reasons I listed above.
We walked slow, talked about the different stores. We went into a local rock and gem shop which was nice and we bought something for my dad. I was really enjoying myself, so long as I avoided seeing the people in my surroundings.
When we got back to work, I felt invigorated from the exercise. I wanted to go back out -again-. The endorphins made me happy and enthusiastic and ENERGIZED. I was in a great mood the rest of the day.
Now it’s a few days later, and I’m still thinking about how happy I was. I want to go out again, but the old feelings are overpowering me once again. I don’t want to go out and be looked at. Soon these feelings will overcome the happiness and it will be a long while again before I go out. If only I could muster the courage (and the money) to go out every day, even just to walk around. I think the difference would be amazing.
Maybe after I’ve lost some weight after the surgery I will be able to do these things.
No maybe about it. You can and you WILL!