I have suffered enough, and so have you

March 11th, 2010 · body image, fear, love, writing/inspiration

I’ve spent the week thinking about the myriad of ways that I want to spend the next twenty-five years of my life. I’ve been focusing on the elements in my life that haven’t been serving me well, or assisting me in reaching my fullest potential.

And I’ve decided that I have suffered enough. I have let months go by without moving my body the slightest amount. I have consumed forkful upon forkful, far surpassing my body’s natural breaking point. I have piled on heaps of unnecessary security blankets, fearful of moments of vulnerability. I have said yes so many times when I wanted to say no, and vice versa. I have been afraid, and I have made terrible choices.

But it has not been all bad. My body, my relationships, my experiences, have all culminated in allowing me to become a person that I admire. I have pulled it together when I’ve dropped my basket. I am proud of my accomplishments.

And I want more of them.

And I’m really excited that I feel that way.

For many years, I allowed my body to define me. I let it tell me when I was being too smart, too sexy, to motivated. I let it tell me when I was taking up too much space and when to shut up. I let it reign me in when I was too excited or passionate – when I felt it would be *improper* for a woman of my size to exude such unbelievable confidence.

Today I stumbled upon at #plussizebloggers chat, whereupon I was first excited and then saddened that it was a compilation of bloggers who were supporting one another’s weight loss attempts. Can’t a blogger (and a person for that matter) be plus
size and exist in a realm other than a continual weight loss cycle?

I am not in anyway against people who are working hard to lose weight, become healthier, or more physically fit. In fact I am often in awe of those who have accomplished the monumentous feats that I have often dreamed of. I’m just wondering if we can learn, as a culture, and as a blogging community, to love ourself now, exactly as we are today? Is it possible to learn to love every dimple, curve, amount of cellulite?

I want to move and eat well because it allows my brain, body, and heart to feel better. I want to quit allowing the size of my jeans to dictate the amount of success I feel I’m worthy of garnering for myself. I want to love my flaws today, utilizing the kajillion moments I’ve spent daily assessing and planning and condemning and make things around me more beautiful.

And I want you to feel courageous enough to do the same.

With love, xoxox.

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a birthday post, AKA i love you

March 8th, 2010 · activities, love

My father always told me that I was born the week crocuses were beginning to bud in New York.

Today, I’m twenty-five.

Thank you all so much for coming along on this journey with me as I attempt to become a better person, a stable adult, and a woman who honestly loves and appreciates her body.

P.s. Am VERY busy today eating cake and drinking champagne but stay tuned for many more precious MM gems to be hurled your way in the near future. Ideas for a topic you’d like me to cover? Comment below, email me at Medicinalmarzipan@gmail.com, or DM me @mmarzipan. I sure do appreciate you and all you do.

Xoxooxoxo

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creating a safe space for change

March 4th, 2010 · control, fear, love

I spend much of my adult life looking for holes in my ever thickening atmosphere of comfort and safety, trying to figure out how to better insulate and support myself. I am the type of girl who needs serious continuity and stability. I need to know where my stuff is, how I’m going to get from point A to point B, and how to financially support myself. I yearn for relationships with people who are neither up nor down, but generally even keeled and constant in their love and support. For me, insecurity within my space or plans feels tantamount to physical pain.

It is important that when you are trying to grow, build, and learn as a person, you create the environment around you that best faciliates your process. For some, this means adventure and new faces and big city excitement, while for others this includes home cooked meals, family, and clean sheets. Whatever this means to you, creating that space for yourself will bring you endless comfort and personal security, and when these basic needs are taken care of you will have a much greater capacity for achievement.

Tips for creating safe personal spaces:

1. Spend some time with yourself, think about what makes you happy and supported, and strive to obtain those things for yourself, even when it seems financially or physically impossible. Example: my apartment is expensive and I often think about the money that I could have in the bank if I lived somewhere cheaper, but when I come home from work and sit on my couch and look around, I almost always feel relieved and overjoyed that I am living in an apartment that is so spacious and quiet and feel inspired to work on other secret dreams I’ve been harboring.

2. Be protective of your space. Do not allow others with negative energy and judgement in if all they are going to do is contaminate it with their bad mood. This applies broadly, however, it can be difficult to control on a wide scale, and truly, if you can keep one little aspect of your life (like your home) free of annoyance and petty drama, you will feel more stability throughout other apects of your life as well.

3. Be silly. Have you always wanted a chalkboard wall? A room painted red? A kitchenaid to stir up your favorite recipies? A lace table cloth? A fancy shower caddy? A king size bed? When I was a kid I was obsessed with scented laundry detergent, but my parents were kind of hippies and always leaned towards the unscented arm and hammer variety. When I moved out of their house one of the FIRST things that I did was buy deliciously scented laundry detergent. And fabric softner. And dryer sheets. Still now, I get a kick out of doing laundry, and it’s just a small little way that I make myself happy on a daily basis. I also love: super fancy sheets, nice computers, big beds, frivolous grocery store buys, trashy magazines, red couches, stove top espresso machines, and watching instant netflix and megavideo in bed. Whatever small things you can do to relax and reward youself are so important. You work hard! You deserve little things that make you smile here and there.

4. Clean. Now, one time a very wise woman told me that there was a little version of myself living inside that was stunted by the chaos and squalor that I was living in at a teenager. She told me that I that little girl could not grow or flourish if I surrounded myself with filth and disorganization. I thought she was insane. It wasn’t until many years later, when I started cleaning up after myself a little better, that I truly understood what she meant. I am so much happier when my house is clean. I can move around better, more easily find my important documents, get ready in the morning, and relax on my days off if the space that I’m living in is picked up and neat. The best part about this is also that cleaning can be really therapeutic AND that once you deeply clean a space it really only takes minor upkeep to keep it looking that way!

What about you? Do you think it’s important to create a stable, nice home for yourself? What kinds of tricks do you use to make your life easier?

Xo.

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spring cleaning

March 2nd, 2010 · body image, food, sex

Happy March marzipanlings!

March might just be my favorite month of the year, and not just because my birthday is in SIX days. Eeep! I love march because of the dramatic changes that occur, because things are blooming and growing. I love it especially this year because I’m ready to change and grow and there are all sorts of detox and reorganization that I’ve already embarked on.

The first is a promise to myself to do at least thirty minutes of yoga a day. I’ve been trying to do more yoga overall, but I find that it is so much easier to even find the will to work out when you make an effort every single day, so your muscles are still a little sore and ready for motion. THEN I was reading Carrots ‘n Cake and I realized that she was organizing a yoga month, so I hopped right on the bandwagon! Want to participate? Check out her blog or follow my daily moaning and groaning bliss by following me on Twitter: @mmarzipan. I am actually trying to tweet these days, so get ready! Also, I may need twitter school, as I am a hopeless loser and no one wants to be my friend. Please send tips. I need all the help I can get…. Haha.

Also! I am trying to eat healthy. And for me, that means, not eating wheat, which I happen to find so difficult! And I work in an Italian restaurant with the best pizza… And am also attempting to consume noni fruit every morning, a rotten blue cheese smelling antioxidant mega food which has detoxing abilitites and my mother swears is a natural depression remedy… I will keep you posted with all results!

What kinds of personal spring cleaning are you doing this month?

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learning not to wait until you [insert phrase of choice here]

February 28th, 2010 · body image, control, fear, love, sex positive culture

I spent the first twenty-two years of my life waiting. I was waiting until I was prettier, better dressed, smarter, richer, more successful, happier, but mostly – thinner. I had my entire life on hold waiting, hoping that *next* time I’d be able to keep off the weight, *next* time I’d fit into a size six, that’d I’d finally be: sexy, worthy, happy, lovable. I was waiting to do the big things like write publicly about my experiences once I’d lost the weight. I was waiting to become thin and love myself enough that I could even concieve of letting someone else love me. I was waiting to: wear a bikini, sing karaoke, dance in a club, wear form-fitting dresses and red lipstick, hit on people I found attractive, and take up space in a room. I was terrified – all of the time, and I never felt good enough to be worthy of my dreams.

Waiting was like holding my breath, watching my life like a movie about an under-developed protagonist, waiting for things to happen to me. I never made the first move. My voice was meek in a crowd.

And then I woke up.

Suddenly I panicked. Was I going to be asleep until the day I died? Was I ever going to live my life the way I secretly dreamed? Was I going to be frozen, scared, imobile, and pathetic forever?

For me this initial wake up came in the way of learning, rapidly, to take charge of my romantic and sex life, and in finding that in could be an agent for my own happiness. That is, if I truly believed I deserved it. Now, I don’t really think that this belief needs to be earnest. I think that through visualization and hope for self love, you can culivate belief in your own worth even from the bottom of a negative self esteem pit of despair.

I also don’t think that what you’re wishing and waiting for makes much of a difference – because the process is the same. It doesn’t matter if you are waiting until you are thinner, or get into your first choice college, or get engaged, or have $10,000 in the bank: if you’re not happy with what you’ve got, you’ll never be happy with what you get. Also, while you are waiting to achieve that ultimate success marker, you are missing out on the fantastic things happening around you while your mind is elsewhere.

One day I was visiting my great aunt and she told me that she’d been on a diet everyday since she was fourteen. She was then seventy-four. SIXTY YEARS she had been on a diet. She had gotten married, had two great children who then gave birth to beautiful grandchildren, had a successful career, and yet, she had deprived her body of the food she was craving for the previous sixty years.

Don’t wait. Don’t hold your breath. Don’t delay your dreams. At they end of the day, we really don’t know how long we have or what twists or turns are going to come our way, but what we can control is today – how we feel, what we do, how we move forward, today.

What dreams have you been putting on the back burner? What would happen if you actively pursued them today?

Happy breathing.
Xox.

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