You Think I'm In Control.

So school ended mid-July, and I have spent the last two weeks (1) working, (2) feeling inexplicably confused about why I don’t have a lot of shit to do, (3) adapting to my tremendous amount of free time by driving to Virginia Beach 3-4 times (lost count), (4) re-committing myself to personal goals, okay just one goal, weight loss. My entire life has been plagued by plump and weighted with the chains of being a food fanatic. I have spent my days trying to find excuses for why I am fat and/or reasons why it is okay to keep being fat. With an ever-impending diet commencement date (normally pushed back each Wednesday to the upcoming Monday) I had romanticized my perfect latest “Start Being Thin” date. I naturally assumed that when I moved to Richmond I would immediately being my new life, and in turn my new healthy lifestyle.

My first six months in Richmond had nothing to do with being healthy, although I somehow already made a deal with myself that this whole experience wouldn’t be worth it unless I also reached the height of my weight loss dreams. Once my birthday rolled around I realized I wasn’t getting any younger, and if I was going to do this I had better hurry up and start. This new opportunity and rekindled sense of motivation was quickly morphing into “that time I moved to Richmond to finally get my degree.” The spring and summer semesters had already quickly become a blur of papers and flash cards filled with facts that I had better remember for my future profession. Luckily my kick in the ass finally came when I received money to hire a personal trainer for a few sessions as a birthday gift from my constantly supportive parents. Shortly thereafter I met Danish.

Danish is a personal trainer and double major in Exercise Science and Psychology at the VCU gym. Unfortunately for Danish, a personal trainer trainee, and poor old me, I was about to be subjected to the rather unpleasant physical assessment. After the devastating reality of the scale, the BMI fat pinch test, and several pathetically strenuous physical tests (each followed by heart rate measurements) it was determined that I fall below average in every possible physical test, except for weight, where I turned out to be exceptionally above average. Lovely. Danish and I had a few sessions together. Each session was comprised of Danish trying to have conversations with me regarding his water rafting activities and the gifts he buys for his girlfriends. These adorable efforts at conversation were normally met by my attempts at keeping a steady face free from signs of exhaustion, shock, and dismay. I even once told Danish that he was a madman who enjoyed torturing people, to which he responded, “Yeah, and I get paid to watch.” I wasn’t that bad, the thing was I could actually exercise. My level of performance was significantly lacking, yet the body was in motion.

Not long after I began meeting with Danish I finally took myself to Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market near/in Carytown. It is strange, we all know that eating processed food is not only disgusting and horrible for your body and the environment, but somehow it is perfectly legal and less expensive. Ellwood Thompson’s is a “grocery store” that carries primarily locally grown produce and organic foods. I completely stopped eating fast food, with the exception of a Subway sandwich now and again, and I also haven’t had more than a few sips of soda since the beginning of June. I was feeling grand about my new eating habits and my commitment to physical activity.

Not long after these two developments did I discover the amazing Fat2Fit Radio podcast (www.fat2fitradio.com). Armed with my new trainer, organic market, and podcast obsession, I embarked on the journey of no-longer being fat. This is not the road less taken, less traveled, or less conquered. It is a road I know far too well. I have lost weight in significant amounts, once I even lost over 60 pounds. Ladies and gentleman, I now present to you: the problem. Losing weight, eating healthy, going for walks, hitting the gym, plugging into a podcast, keeping a food journal, counting calories, thinking positive, taking it day by day, saying no, making healthy decisions…I can do all of these things. I have done all of these things, and I have been successful. The problem however, is continuing to be successful, reaching a goal weight, and actually NOT gaining weight back. There is only one, teensy, weensy, itty, bitty difference between the Jessica Rosa of “then” and the Jessica Rosa of “now.” Modern day Jessica Rosa had identified her patterns, her pitfalls, her weaknesses, and her favorite opportunities to fail. Somehow I am more awake this time. I changed my mind about being fat on May 21, 2011. So far I have lost ten pounds. Which is a piss-poor accomplishment and I could have done a lot better. Yeah, yeah, yeah… it is still ten pounds, but I have failed several times in the last two months, one week, and one day. So now I can feel myself approaching that pivotal point where I fall flat on my face, give up, and start all over again six months from now. Or I suck it up, accept my failures, and try to improve upon them in the next two months, one week, and one day.

So what is going to make this time count? How can I ensure my success? How can I guarantee that this time I am going to reach my goal? I can’t. But I really want this. I have always really wanted this. I have imagined myself healthy, thin, and happy, but I have never actually allowed myself to experience it.

One little project this podcast gave me was to complete the following sentence: “I must achieve my fitness and weight loss goals because if I don’t…” The podcast people say that if you really wanted to be healthy and lose weight you had to come up with five ways to end the sentence, or you weren’t really ready. I came up with fourteen reasons in less than two minutes. Some of my reasons are extremely lame, personal, weird, shallow, archaic, and embarrassing to admit, but they are also the first things that honestly came to my mind. I don’t know why on earth I am actually sharing this information with people. I guess the “thin me” knows that the louder I say it, and the more often I say it, the more likely I might be to make it a reality. So here it goes.

“I must achieve my fitness and weight loss goals because if I don’t…

I will be horribly unattractive and fat forever.

I will never know what it feels like to look uncompromisingly amazing.

I will never know what it feels like to participate in physical activities for fun.

I will suffer physically by having higher chances of contracting and dying from several different diseases and illnesses.

I will never feel good about myself and I will always be insecure.

I will always tell myself that there are things I can’t do, even if I can do them.

One day, I will be a fat bride. (I really hate myself for this one.)

I will never know what it feels like to go for a run while thinking about life like they do in the movies.

I will always secretly know that other people think I am fat.

I will continue to feel disgusted every time I accidently catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, or see the results of an impromptu picture.

I will always be more terrified than everyone else on roller coasters.

My back will continue to hurt.

My knees will continue to hurt.

I will never truly be who I am inside.

Don’t judge me. I’ve got that part covered.

Rosa

I’ve Barely Been Gone

So about a week ago I had the most vivid and intense dream I have had in a long time. I love dreaming. I wish I could put all of my dreams on dvd and become obsessed with the limited edition box set. Nothing is better than being out of your element, and having the freedom to be anyone, at anytime, with various levels of self-concept and self-esteem. I have no idea to what brainy devices and mysteries I owe this pleasure, and I also don’t know how and what I can read into it, but it was dramatically delicious none-the-less.

Embark on this journey through the depths of my psyche, won’t you?

The dream began as all dreams must, in a location that seems like reality, but is really just a figment of your imagination. We open in a conference room at the Residence Inn located in Virginia Beach, Virginia (although there is no Residence Inn in Virginia Beach, apparently I unconsciously want there to be!) I open my eyes, and I am Jessica Rosa, in a meeting room, complete with white boards and conference tables. As I look around and begin to piece together my location and purpose, I realize that I am wearing a purple dress with bright yellow suns all over it…picture a chubby and brunette version of Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. Before my body has time to reject my dress like an inadequate kidney, I notice that I am standing in a conference room with a random (and pathetically scarce) number of friends and family. Not only are there about 5 or 6 people here, but there is no food, no drinks, no decorations, no music, no wedding dress - nothing. The closest things to sustenance are a few crumbs left over on the tables from the last group. I did not plan my wedding…AT ALL. How did I let this slip through my fingers? Was I so overwhelmed with everyday life that I just...forgot? I stood in the middle of the room, soaking up the atrocity that was my wedding, and oozing out disappointment and embarrassment like some sort of bridezilla-plant photosynthesis. I knew I had to do something. Jessica Rosa (the bride) could not go down like this. I wondered how much longer my family and friends could go before the painful urge to point out deficiencies set in.

I tore out of the conference room armed without a plan and only the biggest dilemma I could imagine. As I stormed the hotel to find the life-ruining fool responsible for this act of pure evil, I noticed that each and every one of the employees at the Residence Inn all happened to be Nordstrom employees. I didn’t have time to figure out why Nordstrom and the Residence Inn switched employees for the day, so I just began shouting (total problem-solver) – “What’s going on? Where’s my wedding?! How did this happen?!?! Get some food together!! That room is a mess!! Help me!!! (Apparently in dreams I go into instant dictator mode when I am stressed out…so unlike the calm and delightfully professional communicator I am in real life.)

No one was listening to me; they were too busy with the disaster recovery of the lunch buffet that had just been devoured by a group of tourists with sunblocked noses and bathing trunks. Somehow I came across and untouched platter of baked-to-perfection, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. (And if you are asking yourself, “I wonder if these cookies Jessica Rosa is alluding to are of the variety I can get 3 for a dollar from Subway on special occasions?” My answer is yes, yes, a million times yes.)

Before I snatched the platter of cookies with a wild ferocity unmatched by any cookie snatcher known to date, I thought, “You know, I really need to pee!” I knew before I even made eyes with the first cookie that there was no way I would make it back to the wedding before stopping by the bathroom. I don’t know why I intentionally sabatoged the integrity of these cookies, but I did. I took them into the bathroom with me and peed to my heart’s content. On my way back to the conference room I realized that I couldn’t serve cookies at my wedding that had watched me pee. So I ditched those bitches and made my way back to my wedding, a.k.a.“Misfortune 2011.”

At this point my guests were just standing around waiting for something to happen, exactly like the Sims. The room was empty in every possible sense of the word. There was only me and the soulless bodies of a few random friends and family. Finally I got a hold of myself, I mentally did the whole thing where you get shaken and slapped across the face. I pulled myself up by my Spanx straps and said, “No! This will not be my wedding! There has to be some mistake! My wedding must be at the other Residence Inn and we all just came to the wrong one!” I turned to run out of the conference room to find Pilly and Peter heading outside for a cigarette break. I was momentarily insane with anger, Pilly could have a least volunteered to help me find our lost wedding, but I had to get this figured out, and fast. There was no time for dramatics. I hopped in my car and drove to the next nearest Residence Inn.

This hotel I made up completely. There is no Residence Inn that looks like this, or at least that I know of. On my way to the second hotel I realized that not only did I forget to plan my wedding, but I just plum forgot to plan my honeymoon, and worse yet, I forgot to apply for a marriage license. There was no way this wedding was going to happen. It was impossible.

I still couldn’t give up, there were people back at Residence Inn 1 counting on me, I had to make this right. I exploded through the front door of Residence Inn 2 as only a woman scorned could. I once again found random Nordstrom employees working at the front desk. I sprinted down the hallway and passed Taylor; he was holding a clip board and taking some sort of inventory. How did he get a job here? He wasn’t a Nordstrom employee. I knew that he had seen me, and he knew that I had seen him, and we both knew, that we both knew, that we both noticed and deliberately ignored one another – but we said nothing. Just as I was about to turn around and give him a piece of my mind I realized that I had forgotten to invite Taylor to my wedding, so I thought best not to go after him. I came out of the backdoor and stumbled upon a man who was fond of suspenders talking to the employees about wanting to use the pool after work. Nope, no wedding here.

So once again I jump back in my car and headed back to Residence Inn 1. As soon as I entered the building I could tell that something was differ now. People were optimistic; there was electricity in the air! I got the immediate sense that something amazing was about to happen. There were more people now, luxiouriosly lounging about the lobby, all dressed up, rubbing elbows, engaging in long drawn out belly laughs, it was an evening! A black tie affair! Peter was in front of a computer with a crowd behind him showing off his latest animation creations, things were happening. I paused for a moment and instantly concluded that this was it. I, Jessica Rosa, was actually going to get married. This was my moment in the sun, well my moment under a strange shade of lavender and several suns. I was just going to have to suck it up, things got off to a rocky mountainous start, but I wouldn’t allow my wedding to go down in history as the worst one of all time. I was going to march down that aisle and finally marry Michael J. Pilapil. I had the nerve, and I was going to do it, I just had to “get that dirt of my shoulder” and head for the conference room. As I walked through the lobby I overheard my Aunt Dyann say, “Yeah I heard it was a beautiful promise ring,” but her tone was sarcastic and inquisitive. I wondered what she meant, but didn’t have time to find out.

I approached the conference room door, took one final breath, and then opened the door with all of the grace an ease possible for a Rosa. And there, before my very eyes was a lavish and uncompromisingly shiny ball room. It is decorated entirely. There was a lot of red and gold, there were crystals dangling from all possible fixtures, things were glittering and twinkling everywhere, it is a wedding fit for a Kardashian. There was enough food and drink to feed everyone I had ever known. And most importantly the room was full of adoring friends, family, and even fans and members of the media! A wave of relief and excitement came over me, this was all for me! Everyone was here to see me! The cameras were all here to photograph me! I was the star of the show, the main event, the cherry on top, the king of the world and the bell of the ball!!!!!!! Me, me, me, wonderful, darling ol’ me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As I took my first step into the room a thunderous round of applause detonated, and everyone was on their feet! And just before everyone I had ever known in my entire life leapt to their fee to block my view, I caught a glimpse of Shannon and Pilly kissing as they were just announced husband and wife. Cameras began to go off, and Shannon expertly smiled, waved, winked, and curtseyed for each and every flash. As Pilly and Shannon made their way down the aisle arm-in-arm, Shannon whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry, we are just joking.”

Ok, what? I don’t know what any of this means, and I am not sure that I want to.

For some reason I could not escape the dream world that night. Before I finally woke up for the last time I had two other dreams: one where I was eating a pancake on top of some red beans and rice (which sounds like the most putrid combination of all time), and a second dream that included an argument between me and my mom because she forced me to get her a peach out of the fridge when she knew I was sore and tired from working out.

Ah, sometimes it is nice to be awake.

Tracing the lines,

Rosa