See What You See....

Today was a sad day. I cried a lot. I'm reading a book about mind mapping. It is overwhelming and a little depressing. I think there are a lot of things I don't want to see in my marriage. Counseling and reading are pressuring what I have been blind to or chosen not to see. 

 I stepped on the scale yesterday and Ryan came around the corner...

"You don't want me to see?"

"No."

"I can help you."

"I don't want your help."

I walked into my closet and Ryan got in the shower. I walked back to the shower...

"I don't trust you."

"Jonnette, you were moving 200 pound railroad ties. I mean, they were heavy for me. I, I , You called me scrawny once."

"So you are scrawny and I am fat."

"Neither one of us is perfect."

"No, we aren't perfect. But I am fat."

"I didn't say that."

I walked away and there was never another conversation. Whenever these kind of conversations come up Ryan always tells me, "Jonnette, I am very attracted to you." Those are his exact words. But it's in what isn't said that hurts. It's a constant reminder of his journal entry twenty-five years ago, "She could lose a few." I guess I always thought I'd marry someone that would love me more and more as the years went by, whether I stayed the exact same size or not. But, I wasn't the right size when he married me. 

A week or so ago we are in the kitchen talking about the girls buying matching bikinis for our LA trip. Sam didn't get a matching one and we were trying to find one. Ryan interjects, "Should we get mom a matching bikini?" smirking and half laughing. He knows how insecure I have been about my body our entire marriage. Yet having that knowledge he still made a comment like that.

I've come a long way. I know I am not my eighteen year old body. But my body is amazing. I can lift and carry things that are truly heavy. Those railroad ties were seriously 200 pounds. And I moved them, with a broken neck. Wrestling with my boys are cherished memories. My girls love the strength they find within their own bodies. It wasn't so much about the rejection of my body as it was the lack of caring for me from my supposed beloved.