Friday, July 10, 2009

The Alabatross.

According to dictionary.com:

Albatross (al buh traws):

1.
any of several large, web-footed sea birds of the family Diomedeidae that have the ability to remain aloft for long periods.

2.
a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility.


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Meet the albatross. My albatross. She is blessed with this moniker based on the second of dictionary.com's given definitions, of course.
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Some days she is more of a "moral or emotional burden" than others, but, more and more, I am trying to look at her simply as a responsibility, and an increasingly satisfying one at that. I force myself, each day, to do at least 20 minutes. This is a remarkable feat, given the fact that three weeks ago I could not remain standing upright on the thing for more than thirty seconds at a time.
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Each morning (or occasionally, afternoon or evening) I climb aboard the albatross with just one goal: to keep moving. The first few steps are free and easy. So free and easy, incidentally, that I usually begin fooling with the resistance knob, realizing, in short order, that a level "3" is all the "burn" my butt and thighs can handle right now. I started at level 1, though, after gaining the ability to avoid toppling over into the adjacent treadmill (my perpetual nemesis and the only motivation needed to learn this particular skill), so progress has been made.
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By five minutes in, I still usually wish I was dead. But it IS getting easier, and this small fact, alone, gives me hope. I've started playing mind games to distract myself from my discomfort. I'll look out the windows, onto our back lawn, and try to force myself not to look at the timer for one full minute. This has been an excellent means of gauging just how radically out of whack my perception of time is. I may last ten seconds, max.
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If there is wildlife on the move in our backyard, I concentrate on that. There is a cadre of squirrels that run a frenetic loop around the yard before skittering up the trees to perform a hostile takeover from the local bird population. Red breasted something-or-others and a sundry mix of local avian residents explode from the leaves like feather flocked fireworks, which reminds me, ironically, of the first, more literal, definition of albatross.
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The birds aren't web-footed, of course. Nor do they remain aloft for long periods of time, but they do fly. And they make me wish I could. For the briefest of moments, I feel the tiniest bit lighter, and I forge ahead with renewed resolve to just keep taking those single, small steps, one after another.
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Interestingly, an albatross of the bird variety, figured prominently in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It seems these birds are considered good luck by sailors, and some poor, fictitious schmuck in this epic poem has the bad taste, lack of sense, or perhaps simply the poor marksmanship to shoot one of them. He is forced by his fellow sailors to wear the bird's corpse around his neck as an indication of his singular responsibility for the grave offense against the bird, ostensibly sparing his ship mates the wrath of the sailor gods.
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This image appeals to me, and it seems to fit with my current efforts to get honest about my weight and take responsibility for my health. I have finally come to realize that my body is MY responsibility -- my FAULT, really -- and I have no one to blame but myself for its current state of disrepair. Nobody did this TO me, and no one but me is going to get me to a better place.
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Even if they wanted to, they couldn't.
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I was lamenting my long history of obesity to one of my sisters a few days ago, via email. I was in a pretty low place, emotionally, at the time, kicking myself for "cheating" big time at a buffet dinner with my in-laws last weekend. She had written about her own struggle to keep up a workout routine, and I replied with a long self-pitying, somewhat resentful response about NEVER having been "thin" and how she, one of the "skinny girls," couldn't possibly understand a LIFETIME of fat jokes, catcalls, animal noises, and sub-zero body image. I revealed that I was even considering bariatric surgery, even though I know its long-term success rates aren't always great, and I don't really have the money for it. "I just want to FEEL what being thin feels like ONCE," I whined, "even if it only lasts a moment."
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She wrote me a simple, beautiful reply, that brought tears in only the way a sister's deep and abiding love can: "I'd give it to you on a platter, if I could . . . "
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(I trust, by the way, that the choice of the word platter was NOT a thinly-veiled fat joke. My use of the word thinly, however, is the worst kind of bad pun.)
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But she can't hand it to me on a platter. Or in a bowl. A cup. Not even in the most spectacularly healthy of non-out-gassing workout-diva water bottles.
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This is my body. My fat. My blood sugar and cholesterol counts. And it is up to ME to get them under control.
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I'm confident I won't be hanging my albatross around my neck in order to take this responsibility seriously, though such a spectacle might make for an interesting workout.
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Of course, that doesn't mean I'll never shoot the damn thing.
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* Note about the formatting: For some reason, the post was not recognizing my paragraph separations, so I used the asterisks for readability. Please let me know if they are more annoying than helpful.

2 comments:

  1. have you thought about reading or rocking out to some awesome music while on said albatross? I have a "dance" mix I listen to while on the treadmill.

    BTW - good for you - I'm very proud of you.

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  2. If I could get my crap together (and keep the kids from stealing/maiming it) I would load some other tunes on my fake iPod (a pink, tweenish looking thing that might warrant a chuckle itself). I was just thinking a good late 80s / early 90s pop/dance mix might do the trick, though I'm such an old codger now I can only take so many drumbeats before I get a headache. I've tried to figure out how to download podcasts, since I'm such an NPR junkie, but no luck with that yet. Someday . . . Of course, I could just dig the stereo out of storage and turn that on . . . Hmm. Good suggestion, Shel.

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