This is the only place I can bitch about this

because it's culturally unacceptable in our society for women to COMPLAIN about LOSING weight.  Yep.  I'm going to do it.  I'm gonna bitch about the fact that I'm losing weight.  And if you don't wanna hear it...stop reading right now.  Don't continue reading and then get mad and resentful and send me hateful comments (not that anyone's done that, but I'm just saying).  Just stop reading now if you know you'll be tempted.

I cannot talk to my best friend about losing weight, nor can I discuss it with my girlfriend - because they both have significant self-image issues and are constantly trying to lose weight.  I can't bring it up in standard conversations, because it's only acceptable to bitch and moan constantly about weight gained, not weight lost.  (PS, I get really tired of beautiful, normal, shapely women hating their bodies.  Really really tired of it.  Guys and Queer Gals, I don't know how you live with it - but I won't let my gf make derogatory comments in front of me about the body I just finished adoring every curve and swell of - it's insulting to herself and to me.) My own sister is a beautiful woman with a body I couldn't pay to have plastic surgery to resemble...and she's had an eating disorder for several years.  And covers her lovely shape with saggy ill-fitting shapeless clothing constantly.  It makes me feel very very sad.  I am so sad that all of these beautiful women, who are genuinely lovely outside and in, look in the mirror every day and hate what they see.

I've been underweight most of my life.  I spent my entire childhood being called names like toothpick and skeleton.  I could never find clothing that fit, because I'm also above average hight.  Pants were always too short or too big, tops were always too short or too big.  I was very excited when it became fashionable for pants to drag on the ground, because then at least I could find some that fit at the waist and weren't high-waters.  Even now, I have to take 10 items into the dressing room to find one, maybe two that fit.  And I will never be able to order clothing from a catalog successfully.  Ever.  In my  late twenties, I started to gain some weight and fill out a bit.  I finally got a shape, some curve to my hip and ass, and at age 30 I actually got up to a C cup bra size.  When I joined roller derby I gained something like 10 pounds and I was thrilled.  I went up a pant size and a half and a shirt size too.  And it was muscle!  I was very happy with my weight and my size, finally, after 30 years, I had a feminine shape (instead of being stick-like and boyishly bodied). 

And then I got divorced.  And since November 07, I've lost 20 pounds.  20 pounds I did not have...to lose.  I did lose my appetite for several months, but I was eating, and eating enough to stay healthy.  I'm off hormonal birth control for the first time in 16 years, and that may have something to do with it too.  But damn.  My appetite's been back for almost a month and I've lost 5 more pounds since March 12th (my last physical - I had lost 15 pounds at that point.)  I thought as soon as my appetite returned, I'd start putting the pounds back on, especially since I've been skating like crazy, building muscle (I hoped).  But when I stepped on my new, blue, IKEA scale ($4.99 woot) this weekend....I had lost 5 more pounds and I'm back to a weight I haven't been at since the late nineties.

And I'm really upset about that.  My clothing hangs on me, my pants look bunched and ugly with the belt I need to hold them up with, I've lost a significant amount of curve, and a full cup size.  I can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe (remember I mentioned IKEA) and I just want to gain the weight back.  I'm not sure what to do.  I've even considered starting to drink weight-building smoothies on practice days to see if that would help.

And I have no one to talk to about it because as a white woman in westernized culture, I'm virtually alone in wanting to gain weight.  So thanks Vox and my neighborhood, for letting me vent, without getting resentful and saying spiteful things like "I wish I had that problem".