Body Image by Tracy

Body image.  Yes, if you have a body and you can see, you have an image in your head that is likely not kind in its recollection of your body.  I am now 51 years of age, and for the first time since 1982, when I first gave birth, I am once again the shortest person in my family.  I used to be 5’2 ¼“, though I’m sure I’m closer to 5’2” (flat) nowadays.

As a child, since I was so tiny, people treated me as though I were younger than my actual age.  I was the oldest child in my family, in fact, I was the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family.  Still, I was a tiny thing.

In the sixth grade I was obsessed with breasts.  No, not in some sort of sexual way but with, well, any of my peers who actually HAD them.  You see, I was completely breast free.  In fact, my nickname was Flatsy.  Flatsy was a popular doll back then, and well, it was a fitting nickname. In the 8^th grade a friend coined the nickname Half Pint, which still makes me chuckle when I look back.  I wasn’t anywhere near a half pint then, and I’m certainly not now!

I can remember sitting in an assembly during sixth grade, surrounded by girls who were all wearing training bras.  Let me just say that I was perfectly comfortable back then lying on my tummy watching TV.  Think about that for a sec.  I’ll wait. Someone gave me a training bra, and I wore it and was sitting in that assembly fiddling with my bra strap so someone would notice.  One girl did, and I remember her now as being awfully compassionate and grown up for a sixth grader, bless her heart.  She noticed for me, just like I’d hoped someone would.

I finally started wearing a for-real bra in the 8^th grade.  And once I start growing, well, have you MET me?  I immediately seemed to transform from the flattest girl at Oak Grove Intermediate to someone whom others noticed because of my breasts.  

By my sophomore year, while all the other girls were settling in at the A to B range, I just kept growing.  When I was a junior, still growing, I spent about 15 minutes with the perfect figure.  Before I realized that wearing a bikini wasn’t so modest, I had one, and I looked amazing when I wore it.  I went to the Valentine’s dance with my first boyfriend, and his friends told him (and he told me) when they say our picture together, “Man, she’s stacked!” And stacked I was.

But young women who have the propensity to develop busty busts also have other girly fat scattered about their bodies.  Before too long, not only was I terribly self-conscious about my enormous breasts but I thought I was fat. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t a stick figure anymore.

Do you have any idea how cruel girls are to other girls?  I had lots of comments when I was going through high school and even college.  People have commented and stared and treated me as though I am doing something wrong simply because of how I look.  I had a complaint once after I reported a deposition in Washington, DC.  I was working with an attorney who was not familiar with taking depositions, and I made the process as easy for him as I could.  I did a fantastic job not only that day but in the coming days as I transcribed the deposition.  Throughout the deposition a young attorney on the other side of the room started at my breasts the entire time.  It was very awkward for me.  And what did I receive a week later?  A complaint from that attorney's law firm because I wasn't wearing a blazer! I’m a smart, funny, friendly person.  I wonder, though, how many of those people who just had to comment even know that?

I’ve had seven children.  You want to know why I loved being pregnant?  Mostly because my breasts no longer seemed out of proportion with the rest of my body.  I could sort of relax and just be “normal.” Of course, then they would be born, and I would have the struggle for the next year or so with breastfeeding and the enormous breasts often betraying me by becoming “enormouser” and leaking all over my clothes.

A couple of years ago we went on a trip with family.  Someone told my husband that she was so surprised when she saw me in a bathing suit, because they just assumed I was “heavy” because that’s how they see me when I’m wearing regular clothes.  Yes, I look (to others and myself too) like a much-overweight woman because there just aren’t clothes in the stores where I can afford to shop that actually fit the kind of curves this body has.  So I tend to wear tent-like things some of the time.  When I'm wearing something I like that isn't tent-like, I am embarrassed by how my breasts simply won't be the shrinking violets I wish they would be. Still with the bad body image. And then there’s the times I see a picture of myself and reel in shock over just how large these things are.  

And the worst part?  This is crazy.  But when my mom told me she had breast cancer (she’s been cancer free for over five years now), I was actually jealous for about half a second and even fantasized about what it would be like to finally be able to remove these enormous fatty deposits.

Bless him, my husband loves them.  My babies all received nourishment from them.  They are a huge (pun intended) part of who I am.  But why, oh, why, are we unable to stop looking at the imperfections (as we see them) of others, judging them, thus knowing that others are doing the same to us?  

I came by them honestly.   Many of the women in my ancestry were also blessed.

My life has been restricted by them.  I HATE to run.  For all the normal reasons but mainly for the reason that it hurts my breasts to run.  I loved gymnastics when I was a child.  I’ll bet I would have liked ballet.  I was involved in ballroom dancing for a short while my senior year in high school.  I absolutely loved that.  But by then I was already lopsided, and athleticism just doesn’t develop as easily in the well-endowed body.

But really, who am I? I am a loved wife, mother, daughter.  I am a successful court reporter still perfecting my craft after 20 years in the field.  I am smart enough to belong to Mensa....if I wanted to hang out with boring smart people.  I have been blessed with the ability to recognize truth.  And that includes Truth.  I have a effervescent personality that seems to bubble out of me almost all of the time. I know I am a Daughter of my Heavenly Father.  And, that my friends, is the number one reason I am grateful to have been blessed with a body.  ANY body.  Because I want to continue to learn and grow and to one day be with Him again. He knows ME and loves ME.  Any questions?

The Power of Positive Thinking

I love to be around people who exude positive attributes.  I joke that I have a “Polyanna” attitude.  It seems to be battery operated and recharged by a night of sleeping, because I am truly a morning person.  I remember people I knew in high school and wonder how we would have gotten along had we gotten married; they had “bad attitudes” (angry all the time or pessimistic).

As for me, I can remember from a young age being generally cheerful but also feeling all the bad stuff way too much.  I recall going through periods where I was very morose and wore that feeling on my face.  Weird to think about now that I’m over 50, and, seriously, what problems did I actually have when I was a young teen?

Ah, but there’s the real issue! There was what was most likely the normal amount of strife in my home growing up, but I really felt the bad emotions far too deeply to just ignore them.  My positive self fought constantly with the darkness that lay just around the corner.  As I became an adult and saw all my expectations crumble in my realities, I fought more and more of that darkness.  I assumed I was just mad and sad but not depressed per se.   

While in the middle of a divorce, I went to the general practitioner who had treated me for a few years, but who was also my ex-husband’s doctor.  I was having trouble just getting out of bed in the mornings.  Sometimes I would take my youngest daughter, who still wasn’t in school, to the sitter and then go back to bed. I went to the doctor for treatment for what I was realizing was depression.  He tried me on a few prescriptions, and one helped me get out of bed and be ME again.  But after reciting all the strife in my life at that moment, I expressed surprise that there could be a connection between bad circumstances and depression.  He taught me that living under bad circumstances long enough can cause the depression to take root.

I see a lot of self-affirmations on Facebook, so I know I am not alone in my struggles to find happiness.  It seems a lot of people struggle with letting go of the sorrows that replace the wishes we once had.  I also see a lot of people posting things like “Happiness is a decision,” and while that might be a great sentiment for “healthy” people, it sure isn’t for people like me.  As I said, I can trace what I know now is depression all the way to my childhood.  I absolutely prefer to be happy and cheerful.  It comes naturally to me.  But so does the darkness.  I don’t like it. I don’t crave it.  I don’t create a comfy place for it to stay.  It just comes uninvited and stays as long as it dang well pleases. 

Yes, indeed, we are still living a strife-filled life, but that isn’t my problem.  My problem is how often I feel incapacitated and unable to deal with the blows that life offers. The whole debacle of the job offer in Montana set me back for weeks.  I keep remembering that right now I expected to be in the middle of a four-day journey to move our family.  I’m glad I’m not, but I’m not glad.  You know? But, really, the fact that it is taking me so long to move past the bad way it makes me feel is so frustrating. 

How could I choose this?  Why do these things feel like somebody stabbing me while others tell me I need to buck up and ignore the gaping wounds? 

I absolutely agree that for some, happiness is simply a decision.  Some people really do look at the world from a pessimistic place.  If you know me, you know that I like people until, well, they’ve just convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt that I shouldn’t like them. And when I’m just feeling negative, I can mentally shake myself, put on a smile, and go at it from a more positive place.

I’m all caught up with my work.  I just finished proofing the last transcript.  I have a fairly short depo tomorrow and then nothing till next Wednesday and Thursday.  And then nothing.  ::gulp::

Now that I’m caught up and have even written this blog entry, I am going to get right back to work at getting job applications submitted and even looking at houses.  We have possibly two weeks before we have to be gone from this place.  ::gulp:: again.

Now that the other shoe has dropped, do I really like the pair?

Boy, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks! After receiving my job offer, we started stressing about how on earth we would manage to move so far away in such a relatively short time period.  Well, guess we don’t have THAT worry anymore!  Oh, wait, yes, we DO have that worry.  We have to get out of our house possibly by January 14^th. 

Yesterday in my email I received something that was clearly from the Montana State government.  I opened the email, which said nothing, but the attachment was titled “sorryltr.doc.”  So I knew what it was when I opened the attachment.  It was a fairly terse letter stating that I had not been selected for MY job.  Not even a personal letter or phone call.  I can’t even tell anyone what that did to me.  It was…yeah, I can’t even think of the words.  Darryl was across the room at his desk, just finishing a telephone call, and he came over and just held me.  I was too shocked to cry.  I wanted to, though.

Everyone has shared feelings of shock and dismay and “that’s not fair” with us.  This was totally unexpected.  And despite the actual facts of the matter, I keep feeling like it was a personal rejection.   

But I wasn’t rejected.  I was selected as the ONLY person who was qualified for the job.  It appears that because the offer was made to me before any other applications were provided…well, THIS go around, anyway….that my offer was null and void.  Oh, yeah, I have that offer on my desk at home.

I was so eager to be a part of that court family.  I really liked the people, and I knew I would fit right in.  And my husband even went to the court and visited with two of the reporters and the judge who had made the offer.  They all like me.  They all like him.  My certifications put me at the front of the list of prospects.

I’m trying to regroup now, especially after all the ugly things bubbled to the surface.  The things that you only feel justified in saying after you have finally decided to divorce.  There’s a lot of unhappiness in our family regarding things in our day-to-day lives, and, well, now that we’re not caught up in the extreme high and then the extreme low of this experience, all those ugly things are impossible to ignore.

For those of you who take things literally, I’m not really talking about divorce or anything about our foursome at home.  In fact, this has been a refiner’s fire, and guess what?  We are good.  We *like* each other.  Darryl and I are amazing.  Our kids are amazing.  They are going to be amazing adults one day.  Speaking of Darryl, I cannot tell you (there I am again with no words) how much he means to me.  He is truly my rock.  That sounds so trite, but those of you who are as lucky as I know exactly what I mean.

And guess what?  As I was in the process of writing this blog post this afternoon, my cell phone rang.  It was one of the reporters who was most instrumental in getting me before the judge who originally interviewed me.  She said she learned I was not selected when she got my email this morning.  I had written to her and the other two reporters, thanking them for their warm welcome and expressing regret that I would not be joining their family.  She was mortified, and she said the judge who is going to be sworn in on January 7^th has turned out to be not such a nice guy, and now they’re worried for whoever takes the job that was taken from me.  She assured me that it was NOT me.  And there goes the lump in my chest.

Everyone else has been right:  He is in charge of the goings on in my life, and He has something better ahead.  We just have to keep looking.

"The very next day, you gave it away"

A friend suggested the other day that I blog about the experience I’m having regarding a great job for which I applied a few weeks ago.  First, I can’t believe it’s only been a few weeks! 

We have known for a long time that we need to change our circumstances so that we not only have a steady paycheck but health benefits for our family.  My hubby has been trying for some time to get a job that would bring those things to the table, but it has not happened yet.  In the meantime, I have applied for two court reporting officialships in my area (not wanting to move our kids), and I basically bombed both interviews.  It was so hard for my self-esteem to bomb not once but twice.  And then to have to socialize with the very people who interviewed me as well as those people who were chosen instead!  And then to have a rare (for me) mistake explode in my face has left me wary whenever I go to DC for a job.

I get regular updates from Indeed.com with court reporting and related job openings.  One day I saw one for a court in Montana, and it seemed to “speak” to me.  I like the idea of moving back west, close enough to family to be able to go see them (or vice versa) but not so close that we’re bugging each other.  I’ve been to Montana (this particular town, even), and while the snow can be daunting, this location actually has less snow than other parts of the state. 

I ended up being particularly busy for a few days, so I didn’t get a chance to apply for the job until one Saturday.  The job was listed in the JCR, as well.  And right next to it was a job opening in a much smaller location in Montana.  When I clicked on the link for the state, the first job didn’t show up on the site, but this second job was there.  I decided to go ahead and apply for that one.  Darryl called the state and discovered that the job was closing the Monday before Thanksgiving, then the applications would be pored over by HR before the approved ones were forwarded to the judge.  I was surprised to receive a call the day before Thanksgiving.  It was one of the judge’s clerks, requesting a telephone interview time the following Monday.  

I contacted the president of the Montana Court Reporters Association, telling her about my hopes and plans.  There was a great description on their website about living in Helena, enticing people to apply for the job opening.  I was interested to find out whether anyone knew if the job had been filled.

I was just crazy excited/anxious about my telephone call.  I couldn’t help but talk about it.  My Sunday School kids even had to hear about it.  Monday finally came, and I had the phone call.  The judge himself conducted the interview, and it went well, although I was feeling very anxious about some of the details of the job.  There would be some driving involved every week, and I know that part of Montana gets plenty of snow.  I really liked the judge, though.

So we fretted and wondered.  Money isn’t great, lots of variables.  Tuesday night I was home alone because Darryl had taken the kids to Mutual. I did some surfing and found myself on the Indeed.com site. I scrolled about three pages in and was surprised to see the first job was again showing up.  I clicked on the link, assuming it would lead to a dead end.  I was surprised to be sent directly to the state site and to see the job was still there, not to mention it had a job number.  I attached my application and sent it in.  Within two or three minutes, I had an email that was referencing that job, and I assumed it was an auto reply.  Turns out it was from a reporter who works with that same court.  She had been contacted by the MCRA president, who told her that I was interested. She was writing to tell me that the job was still open if I was still interested in applying.

I sent the reporter my résumé, which she walked down to the judge who is retiring.  The next day I heard from the secretary for the judge, asking me to interview with them.  I agreed and interviewed after my job that day.  That two-hour time difference works out well.  The interview was amazing.  I made such a connection with the judge and the senior court reporter who conducted the interview.  I was elated because I knew I had not bombed this one.  The real me was back.  Darryl and I and the kids went to dinner, and I missed a call from the senior court reporter.  She called me first thing Thursday morning to tell me they wanted to offer me the position.  I accepted, and she said they would be sending me an official offer letter in the mail.

Over the weekend we told everyone.  I turned down the second job, for which I was then being asked for references. I contacted the depo firms for whom I work and broke the news, basically giving notice that I’d be done working by Christmas.  We started selling belongings that aren’t worth moving.  My aunt offered frequent flyer miles so Darryl could fly out to Montana to do some house hunting.  I had literally just finished talking with her on Monday, finalizing the purchase of those tickets, when my phone rang.  It was an administrator from the courts, calling to tell me that the judge who hired me didn’t have authorization do so and that the interview process was not conducted properly.  She was sure sorry about the inconvenience (if that’s what you call it), but they had to go through the interview process again.

This came from absolutely nowhere.  I was stunned.  The rest of the day was a total waste. Blessedly, I have been working over the past few years to come to terms with the ups and downs of life and seeking the guidance and understanding my Father in Heaven can give me. And my husband has been amazing.  With his help and the help of some good friends, I’ve been processing this turn of events.  I was finally given a call on Wednesday to reset the interview for Friday afternoon.

In the meantime, I was scheduled to work every day that week.  And every single day canceled except for Thursday’s mock depos (which were fun). So I was more than ready and available for the job interview on Friday.

The telephone interview went well enough, but since it was conducted by the same court administrator who had called me, with the judge and court reporter who had been involved in the first interview and the new judge (my, hopefully, new boss), it was a little weird.  I was asked six “canned” questions, for which I had what I thought were good answers.  I felt I had done my best to sell who I am and what I am about, not just once but twice.  Now the rest is in the Lord’s hands.  Well, people will decide, but I can’t do anything more to influence them, so that means I’ll let the Lord worry about it for me.

Maybe I am so amazing that there was really no likelihood I would not be hired.  Maybe the court administrator found something objectionable about me that the others missed.  If I don’t get this job, I believe that there is SOMEthing out there for our family to do.  And there will be another way to rescue my sagging self-esteem. But it’s going to be a long however-many-days till they call back.  And then what?

Love the One(s) You're With

We had stake conference yesterday. Since Darryl and Kristi and I are in the choir, and since our ward’s choir was invited to sing a number for conference, we had our seats in the choir seats. We sang our song right after the opening prayer, so that means I had the next two hours to sort of look out over the congregation as I listened to the speakers.

First, let me say that the conference was excellent. I don’t think I’m alone in the members of the choir who felt the Spirit as we sang “Balm of Gilead,” and once in that place, it was much easier to hear and to listen to what was truly being said.

Most of my life I have struggled with feeling friendless and alone. In fact, right now we are in a ward and a community in which we have lived over six years. While I have many Facebook friends who are my fellow ward members, and while there are plenty of friendly faces when I go to church on a Sunday, the fact is that I remain feeling isolated. That’s mostly my fault. Between the exhausting work I do , along with the travel required, plus the financial ebb and flow that comes with being self-employed, and then, of course, a family with varied personalities, many of which seem to rub others the wrong way, well, I guess that makes me feel like I should just keep myself safe in my little family and in my little house.

See, there’s the So and So Family that one of my loved ones sent an angry email one day. They’ve never turned me away, but I still feel embarrassed every single time I see them. Then there are the awesome young people whom I’ve had the opportunity for five years to teach about the Scriptures with which we have been blessed. Oh, but many of the older ones have heard the outrageous lies of another of my family members and likely believed them. So it’s embarrassing to talk to them anymore. And then there are the younger ones, still much loved by me, but I’m embarrassed because a younger family member is a bit of a free spirit who doesn’t often apply that vocal filter the rest of us find so handy, so I figure those young people probably don’t like us for that reason.

Then there are the different ecclesiastical leaders, men and women, who are actually allowed to judge us, so I’m sure they do. I mean, it’s their job, right? I’m sure they know when we have struggles with some of the commandments, so it’s embarrassing to be around them or to talk with them. (Disclaimer: Our ward and stake leaders are awesome, and no such feelings I have are because of anything they have said or done.) Because I feel so untalented and so awkward, I never volunteer to serve (other than providing a meal when one is needed, I can DO that), I feel like, “Heck, what would these people ever think to say at MY funeral?” I mean, the most sorrowful part of losing members of one’s church family is that these people are often the unsung heroes who have always been ready, willing, and able to volunteer service and rise above their own weaknesses and make someone else’s life so much better. I know because it has sometimes been my luck to be the recipient of their blessed help.

Okay, this is really not just a whiney blog post (“Woe is me!”) No, this was inspired by the thought that crept into my mind yesterday morning and became so loud that I was surprised that no one else could hear it ringing in my head. I looked out over a filled-to-capacity chapel+cultural hall to see faces that I recognize. Some of the faces belong to people I actually know, ward members or former ward members (our ward split a while back). As I saw a face I recognized but hadn’t seen for a while, my mind filled with things I knew about that face. I saw the children of people I’ve known these past six years and let my mind dwell on memories there. I remember when I lived in a place for nine years and had much the same kind of relationship with my ward members there. Unfortunately, in that place my abusive marriage (which no one really acknowledged was abusive because my then-husband provided a service many of the “leading” families there found useful) finally fell apart. I was there when I met my current husband of almost 16 years, but he was an outsider. Imagine the horror I felt (still feel, in fact) when I realized that almost as a single unit that "family" turned its back on me because of the failure of my marriage. The rumor eventually circulated that Darryl had been the reason, not only for the breakup of my first marriage but the subsequent suicide of that first, violent husband. (FTR, Darryl and I met, coincidentally, on line the day my divorce was final. We lived two hours away from my ex when he took his own life, and I don’t believe he and Darryl had exchanged a single word in a long time, though the last time I had been so blessed, it had been a screaming phone call because my ex was facing consequences not to his liking for his own abuse of his very own children). As usual, I digress.

A few weeks ago an on-line friend formed a group on FB that includes the on-line mutual friends we have had for about 13 years when we “met” on a message board on AOL. We really have missed that camaraderie and love we shared back in those days, and the flood of joy and excitement at the resurrection of a unique place we all could “gather” was a little surprising. And then came the confidences. With all the exposure many of us get through FB, there really isn’t any of the real sharing we long for (what if our kids or husbands or ward members see?!) and no place where we could share the struggles we have. In fact, back in the day of the AOL group, we were much more careful about what we would say because the board was public, and we couldn’t be sure who was seeing our confidences. With this closed group with just our recognized old friends, a real Pandora’s Box of secrets was shared. I’ll bet I wasn’t the only one, as I read these stories, to think, “Oh, I had NO idea!” In my case, and I suspect many of theirs, as well, it wasn’t judgmental so much as it was, “I’m not the only one struggling with this stuff!” And that really opened my eyes to the people whose faces I get to see on a regular basis. We’re all dealing with stuff. Every one of us feels isolated and alone sometimes. Even the really awesome, successful people we all admire. Remember “Richard Cory”?

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

(Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Where I was headed is that I realized how much I love the people around me and their stories. I’m happy for my friends whose kids are graduating high school, heading for (or returning from) missions, heading off to school, getting married. I’m happy for my friends who are transitioning from being parents to the joy of being grandparents. This is like a really good TV series whose writing I don’t always expect, but I keep watching it because I’m invested. The “characters” and their stories matter to me.

And that’s when the thought shouted in my mind: Heavenly Father isn’t concerned (nor should I be) with how much people like me or love me. He wants me to be consumed with loving them. All of them. Regardless of all the stuff I nattered on about a little while ago. I’ve had kids in my various Sunday School classes who have had different issues (Asperger’s, personality stuff), and without fail, as I have figured out what made them tick, I was able to work around those things and truly love them as much as I do my own children. And the reward for me? I love every Sunday School class more than the one before, and I love what I am teaching more every week.

That’s it. We are here not to be loved but to LOVE.

I’m going to try this and see whether I can change the way I feel when I enter the church and see the faces of people I have heretofore imagined held some grievance against me or my family. Seriously, most of them are just awesome, and the only reason I feel any kind of negativity is because I imagine it’s there, and so it’s just bouncing off the short leash right back at me. I do love my ward family. For many reasons, they are practically the only family I have. I will try very hard to love them in spite of my scared-to-death self and appreciate that we are all in this together.

Despite my crippling self-consciousness (for Heaven’s sake, I’ll be 51 in a week!), I seem to escape it when I go to work and deal with strangers and love, really just love the interaction. I need to bring that Tracy with me wherever I go, I think….