on letting go part II

I have been hesitant to write about this.  Because even though much, or all, of what I talk about here is personal, there is nothing as intensely personal to me as the way I feel about myself now that I've let myself go.  As of yesterday I am thirty pounds heavier than I was a year ago.  It hurts to admit that.   I'm 5'9" so I can usually hide a few pounds pretty well but this is different.  This is nothing fits need new wardrobe different.  This is catching myself in the subway window reflection and being embarrassed at what I see different.

I've never been skinny, or thin, but I felt healthy for the few years before getting hurt.  The first time I was able to slow down long enough to associate the pain in my foot with something that needed to be taken care of was on our honeymoon and that was over a year ago.  So that's over a year since I've been able to exercise*.   Do you know what happens when you like craft beer and good food and you don't workout?  Scary things happen.  Like 30 pounds in a year scary.

Last week I was given the green light by my physical therapist to try swimming.  She says it's still too risky for the bike (the muscles in my legs are so tight that the wrong move on a bike might tear a different ligament, a frightening prospect) and I knew to not even ask about my old friend the elliptical.  But swimming involves finding a place to swim, and, well, it means getting wet.  I used to walk the block to the gym in my workout clothes, get on the elliptical for 45 minutes, and walk out and home.  Getting wet just feels like such a hassle.  Spending time at the gym to shower and dry and change feels like more than my low workout enthusiasm can handle.  But there is another part of me, a small still not sold part, that feels hopeful again.  That this may finally be the thing that allows me to move in a pain-free way.  That I may actually feel good enough to shed some pounds**.

I see a slightly humiliating account of my public outing in a bathing suit in the near future.  

is this not what the cool kids mean when they say "vintage"? Because this I could pull off.

*I wrote about letting myself go and getting back in March, and the first outing to the gym in April, but the next day the repercussions were pretty painful and I knew I was more hurt than I thought. I never went back.

**That's the funny thing about weight gain. I probably could have fixed most of it this Spring by cutting back on food once I realized I couldn't work out, but by then I was already feeling bad, and it just can't happen when you're feeling bad.