rose in bloom - Some Days! ...

Some days!...

 a plus size woman’s journey to discover her place in a world 

where being slim is the unrealistic expectation for acceptance 

I'd stay in bed, and spend my time sleeping - because sleeping deadens the hurt and pain you're suffering each day. Anyway no one bothers you and you can sink deeper into your misery easily and it doesn't affect anyone else. You can be all alone and crawl into your snug small space under the doona and hide. Hide from the world and from yourself.

Or some days I'd spend it reading. Why do we turn to Mills & Boon love stories when we feel lowest? It's because we can lose ourselves in our dreams and fantasies. Somewhere we believe there is a dark handsome stranger, even someone we might even know, waiting in the background ready to approach us. To take our large white hand in his dark bronzed one, to have it lifted to his lips for a sensual caressing featherlike whispering kiss. To have dark smouldering eyes look into ours, and lips mouthing sweet nothings and endearing words, embracing us and deliciously enveloping us with their sensual promises. 

Oh yes, we may be big women, but we still want and dream of love and affection, and the meeting and merging of two souls. We dream of having 'the earth move', of living the “happy-ever-after” life of the heroines (very seldom are they fat heroines, however). We would enjoy our sexuality; we would spend hours in love making; and we would be cherished and protected from all manner of harm by a wonderful man who could see only us in his entire future. Looking at things logically though, I don't see that it's essential I be treated as a porcelain doll - I'd rather be treated as a warm, loving woman, independent or interdependent as the need demands. Yes, we need to be cherished and protected, but we need to be needed in such a way that we can cherish and protect our man as well. Why should it be seen as  “fantasy” that we desire these things?  Big women throughout history have been known to have had longtime loving relationships - is it wrong that we would wish the same for ourselves?

What else did I do? I watched television. I'd flick the old tele on when I woke up of a morning, and it would still be blaring away when I flicked it off at night. I'd use any excuse to just sit and watch the technicolour movements flash back and forth. Can I remember any of the films I sat through? No, not really. Did I look out the window and see the sunshine and say to myself, “what a lovely day for a walk”. No. Did I convince myself that by staying indoors I would be happier, that I'd be healthier, and that I'd be satisfied? 

No. I simply needed the company of the tele, nothing more. I didn't comprehend then, as I now know, that what I needed was to learn to be comfortable in my own company, yet doing things that would allow me to stretch my imagination and even achieving some of my earlier dreams.  But I needed to become comfortable with myself before I could then start enjoying being in the company of other people. Being alone is not necessarily being lonely, you know. Two different things entirely.   For solitude can be a time of refreshing, reinvigorating, recharging, and just plain relaxing.  While being lonely is being unhappy, starved for interests and affection, and to be sad and isolated.

Sometimes I'd get dressed, sometimes not. Too often I nibbled while I was watching television. Biscuits, cakes, even bread. Boston buns, sweets. Other times, lbs of fruit - well fruit is less fattening than biscuits, isn't it? Not necessarily so, I've found out since. 

I'm not a wine drinker, but there were times when I sat and sipped my way through a “non-alcoholic” wine, and had a headache the entire next day. Don't believe the “non-alcoholic” label - there's always a bit of alcohol in each bottle, and I didn’t want it to become a “habit’, so I didn’t repeat the exercise!

My objective? 

By just wanting to get through the day, I gave myself no chance of even analysing what my objectives might be!  

What I gained! 

Nothing. I wasted time, energy, and opportunities

"Rose In Bloom" - © Copyright 2002-2020, Rosemary Parry-Brock, Australia

Copyright © R Parry-Brock, 2002 

Reprinted 2010

Reprinted 2012

Reprinted 2014

Reprinted 2017

Published on Blogger © Rosemary Parry-Brock, 2020

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ISBN 09577809 4 

(Please bear in mind that this booklet was first printed in the 1990s.  Compare that with today's attitudes.)