It's not that bad. Someone will always want to be your friend, as long as you can stand being used to highlight how slim and pretty THEY are. They will need someone uglier and fatter to validate their self confidence. It sounds horrible, but at this point I'll take what I can get. I watch movies like  'Real Women Have Curves' and fantasize about being accepted for who I am rather than what I look like. But you know, being the 'fat friend' isn't as humiliating as you might think. If you can keep your envy to a minimum you can learn to enjoy yourself and witness how the 'beautiful people' live. It's like getting a glimpse into this charmed life that you could never be a part of. Like your window shopping at a store that will forever be out of your price range. Just close enough to touch, but never possess. They love you because you're funny and sweet and help them to see how good they really look in comparison, and you love them for noticing you. At times it can be painfully embarrassing. When they're shopping for clothes and you're tagging along to voice your opinion on how beautiful they look in all 20,000 outfits they try on, and they always feel the need to tell you how great something will look on you and that you should 'totally try it on!' Of course it isn't going to fit. You know it, she knows it. She just wants to hear you say it. Or when you go with her to the club and 4,000 guys  hit on her and refuse to even acknowledge your existence. Not that I need their attention. I'm married, but it would be nice to be treated as a fellow human being rather than a rabid dog. It hurts. I cannot even begin to number all of the diets I've tried. The hours of exercise I've put in. The salads I've eaten when I really just wanted a burger. But something always happens that makes me stop and think, 'what's the point?' Even if I lost my extra 75 lbs I would still be the 'fat friend.' They're never going to see me as anything else because that's all they've ever known me to be. My husband tells me I'm beautiful and that he wishes I could see myself through his eyes, but I can't. All I see is a spineless blob desperate to feel beautiful. 

Well my Spring Break is coming to a close and as it's ending I would just like to point out a few things I've discovered about myself during this holiday. I don't actually know if Spring Break is widely accepted as a term important enough to achieve capitalization status, but it is to me so I'm always going to capitalize it. Just a little FYI for you there. Okay, realizing something about yourself, having that epiphany of understanding is a feeling that doesn't happen often...unless you're me. This week I've uncovered 3 truths about myself that aren't really staggering or life-altering, but they are things that I hadn't realized before so it's surprising nonetheless.
   The first one came to me when I was sitting on the side of the bathtub while Emily was going potty. She was 'reading' her book and standing up every 15 seconds shouting 'I DID IT!' and then she'd sit down to tinkle some more. So this went on for about 5 minutes, and I'd clap my hands and smile big for her every time she stood up until all of a sudden I got a glimpse into my inner-being. I realized that I have no idea what I'm doing. I am without any maternal 'instincts.' All I am really is the conglomeration of all the advice I've received from every other mother I know. If I didn't have those ladies, I'm not sure that Emily would know how to do anything right now. It was quite a sobering realization, and it made me feel just awful. My poor, beautiful angel has such a pathetic mother. But I guess it's a good thing that I'm realizing it now so that I can work on it, and maybe I'll be a passable parent by the time she graduates high school.
   So my next sudden burst of knowledge showed up during a very unexpected time. I was online reading TFLN and while scanning through all of the entries about Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day I realized that I'm an adult. I know I probably should have zeroed in on that before now, but I was oblivious. I mean, the fact that I was on Spring Break and it never even occurred to me to take off for Cancun and try my hardest to get alcohol poisoning and a tattoo I'd regret forever just shows that I've matured into an actual grown up. Well...the funds weren't there for a trip like that anyways, but I don't believe I would have thought to even if they were. I spent my break potty training my two year old and deep cleaning my house...I'm a disappointment to 23 year old college students the world over. But I guess I'm better off because I haven't been impregnated by a sexy Mexican guy that I can't remember the name of and who I'll never see again...and I didn't get alcohol poisoning.
   The last one happened yesterday while I was cleaning out my closet. I have clothes currently hanging in my closet that I wore when I was a freshman in high school, and they haven't fit me for QUITE some time now. I gained an obscene amount of weight while I was pregnant that I'm still working to get rid of. So anyways, I've been holding on to these articles of clothing because it's always in the back of my mind that I'll shed this weight and be able to wear them again. And then it hit me...no, I won't. I mean, I might shed the weight, but I've gotten taller since then too. Plus they're about 9 years out of date. I'm not the type of girl that owns more clothes than I could ever where in my lifetime because, well, frankly I'm not willing to spend that much money on clothes; however, I am not so cheap that I'm going to lose a bunch of weight and wear clothes that are 9 years old and ugly. I deserve to treat myself to new outfits once I work my ass off. And I do believe that's what I'll do.
  So there it is. Like I said...it's not like I have an entirely new outlook on life based on these revelations, but I do have a better understanding of myself and my goals. I guess that's all I can ask of myself.
  

One of my favorite things to do is re-arrange the furniture in my living room so that it's in a completely different setting than before. I try to be creative with it, but let's face it....there are only so many ways you can position a couch, love seat, and coffee table and make it unique and different from the other 37 ways you've had it set up in the past. My solution? Throw out the old couch, love seat, and coffee table and start over with a brand new set. The problem? Even with a different couch, love seat, and coffee table I'm still hitting the same wall on how to set them up in an exciting new way.

My problem is that I fail to see the bigger picture. Starting over isn't about switching out the little things in life for different little things. Starting over is taking a step towards change, saying to yourself that this is the first day of the rest of my life. Changing not only the little things, but ALL things. All you have to is shake free from the ties of your future history and turn in a different direction. The world is full of never ending possibilities just waiting to happen, if you just erase everything before this and begin again with a new, clean slate.

Starting over, with all it's seductive advertisements of freedom and hope, isn't going to fix your life for you. You'll just keep doing the same things in a different way. I could trade in my house for a new one so that I can arrange my living room furniture in an unprecedented kick ass setting, but it's not going fix the underlying problem. I'll eventually get bored with that setting too and feel the need to re-arrange it again, thus starting that whole cycle over, and what am I going to do? Buy a new house everytime I run out of living room setting options? No, at some point you have to get to a place and decide to be content with what you have.

Remodeling your life simply because you need an escape from your current surroundings, isn't going to fix the problem. At some point you need to stop and think, maybe it's me. And I think you'll find that you already are happy with what you have.