Thursday 18 September 2014

It ain't over til the fat lady sings...



Therefore it's over.   I'm in a local amateur theatre show (The Metropolitan Musical Theatre's "My Fair Lady - come and see it please!  Tickets at www.metmusicals.com.au).  And one of my helpful cast members taped a rehearsal so we could practice a particularly complicated dance routine.

I started to watch the video and wondered where I was and who the fat lady was who seemed to be where I thought I was.  Yup. It was me.  Now granted, I was in baggy rehearsal gear and granted "the camera adds 10 pounds" but to misquote Chandler (to Monica in Friends) - HOW MANY CAMERAS WERE ON ME?

I know I've put on 10 kilograms,   I know I'm still 20 kilograms lighter than what I weighed at my heaviest.  I know my body has changed due to age and two babies, and weirdly, part of it isn't even the extra 10 kilos (I'm prepared for middle aged spread to some extent), what shocked me was the way I moved.

I've always been a dancer.  Since age 4.  I've always considered myself light on my feet, and pretty damn good on the d-floor.  Truth be told, dancing is when I feel my fittest, strongest, most powerful and sexiest.

But watching this video I saw someone clunky.  Someone who had to brace herself to get up from the floor, the way my elderly aunty does when she gets out of a chair.  I saw someone huffing and puffing to get her legs up for the spring kicks and someone who looked like she pounded the floor when she "elegantly waltzed" around the floor in the ballroom scene.

It shocked me to the core.  More than the ever-increasing waistline measurement, more than the 'oh-dear-I-have-to-buy-the-next-size-up moment in the dressing room.  Because this is something I've always prided myself on.  I've never really been hung up on my weight.  I've been skinny and I've been fat and everything in between and my self-esteem was not tied up in the number on the scale.

But this ungraceful, heavy, huffing, puffing, middle aged woman careening inelegantly away on the dance floor was not someone I found attractive, sexy or powerful.  So it's time to put down the fork full of schnitzel and hit the gym.  I'm not going to weigh myself, now or later, but I am going to, once again, feel light on my feet.

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