A little something I wrote*

This is sort of old news by now, but since I only told a few people about it when it happened, it'll still be new news to most of you.

A friend of mine from the IntarWeb writes for a website she created for Conde Nast. (Conde Nast is a large publishing company that produces great magazines like Vogue, Glamour, Allure, Vanity Fair, W, GQ, Details, Architectural Digest, etc.) Elastic Waist is basically "Rants and musings on weight, body image, celebrities, fitness, food and other fixations" according to the blog itself. They began a series called "One From The Vault," which is basically memories from people's lives that relate to weight, weight loss or body image. She asked me to write one, so I did. It went up on June 27, 2007. The link is below.

One From the Vault**

**Unfortunately, Elastic Waist's website went away on December 31st, 2008. I'll copy and paste the text of my post below, so anyone interested can read it.

If you feel like reading it, please do. It's really quite short. If you feel like commenting on it in the comments section here, please feel free.

Thanks in advance!

danielle: one from the vault

In today's world, sometimes it's easy to forget that our muscles and bodies are more than how we look in clothes or a swimming suit. Once upon a time, a larger, sturdy woman was prized as a wife over the lithe tiny girls because everyone knew that those little scrawny arms on Olive Oyl would be no good for hefting bags of flour or driving a team of horses into town. Danielle has come back from the Less Is More mentality and realizes that her former teensy self would have collapsed under her desire to be a female Ty Pennington on home improvement projects. And we have it on very good authority that she can wield a mean screw gun.

I was balancing precariously on a couple of joists in the attic, sweating what seemed like gallons in the more-than-100-degree heat while I used a backsaw to cut through three 2x6s. Apparently, they made the wood much HARDER back in the 1940s. Earlier that day I had used a keyhole/drywall saw to cut through the ceiling of our upstairs hallway--which was made all the more fun by finding metal seam tape and about a ½" of plaster on top of the expected drywall. A few days later, I was helping my husband haul 4' x 8' sheets of plywood up through the opening in the ceiling and carrying them around.

While I was working on that project, I asked my husband: "Can you imagine me trying to do all this hard physical labor if I were still the little 108-lb. person from a few years ago?"

At my smallest in recent years, I can remember getting tired somewhat easily when I was doing basic everyday tasks, but having seemingly endless energy to run on my treadmill. I remember feeling cold all the time, even in the 85-degree heat of summer. I remember desperately thinking, "There's still too much of me" at a time from which I can go back and look at pictures of myself and see that I looked sick and hungry. I remember feeling guilty about eating an apple during the day, when now I'm not sure how I managed to eat enough to maintain the energy to function. We both agreed that there's no way I would have been able to do all the work if I were still in my "smaller is better and happier" mode of thinking.

After so much time spent thinking, "If only I could become smaller, I would be happy," I think I know what's really important in this world. I may not be a tiny little slip of a thing anymore, but now this slightly larger space I take up serves a wonderful purpose--transforming dreams and goals and project ideas into realities. Whether it's using my energy to build a privacy fence or to take another class toward my associate's degree, I know that I'm making the most of my life, my soul and even my body--no matter how big or small it might be at the time.