Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – November 15, 2004

Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – November 15, 2004

Unlike Bridget Jones

Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – November 15, 2004 – What is it they call this? I think it’s the first day of the rest of your life! Perhaps this will be the rest of my slimmer, nutritionally fit life. Dorothy and I caught the subway up to Yonge and Eglinton this afternoon to go and see the second Bridget Jones movie.

It was quite delightful. I enjoyed it just as much as the first one. But unlike Bridget who utters this memorable line to Mark Darcy – “I will always be just a little bit fat” – I still have hopes and aspirations when it comes to my weight. Last night I read a couple of chapters from the book I bought yesterday on nutrition. It filled me with anticipation and dread. This menopausal weight thingie is a bitch.

However, spurred on by remembrances of my formerly svelte self, I marched right past the Treats stand in the subway today and the candy counter in the theatre and straight to my seat. I sat on my hands to prevent myself from pulling a fiver out of my wallet for popcorn. On the way out of the movie, I looked the other way, in spite of repeated “come hither” calls from the chocolate bar shelf.

I triumphed. Back at home by seven o’clock, I fixed myself a plate of chicken and mixed vegetables, then snuck in a few olives, but just for the colour. What I really wanted was a Harvey’s burger, fries and a honking big chocolate shake – perhaps topped off with pie and ice cream.

There is something uniquely perverse about the fact that so much of the food I really like to eat is full of calories, bad cholesterol, fat, sugar and chemicals. Is that why it’s so good? Perhaps it’s true what you read in the media – that food is full of addictive components designed to get us (me) deliberately “hooked” on fast food, desserts and all manner of fat producing agents. Of course there is great comfort in food. Not just the camaraderie of the food itself, but the ritual of anticipating, savouring and eating a wonderful meal.

From the time we’re young children, we associate food with care, warmth and comfort. Knowing this, maybe I should eat with my hands, standing up in my backyard on a cold night. Perhaps then the bloom would be off the rose as far as food was concerned. In the new Bridget Jones movie, there aren’t many exercise scenes, so maybe Ms. Jones has started to accept her genetic predisposition to a certain chubbiness. There is, after all, an ancestral component to our physiques. I am never going to be 5’10” tall with a stick frame. I have breasts (which were magnificent before they went on safari in search of my navel), a waist, curves and a tushie of quite pleasing proportions.

I could never match up with today’s idea of air-brushed beauty and I don’t want to. I just want there to be a little less of me, so I feel comfortable in my own skin again. This is doable. Last night Howard and I went for a walk and I’m going to grace him with my company again tonight. I’ll need to wear off the peanut butter and crackers I just ate. In defence of my little snacking faux pas, I’m happy to report that peanut butter is off the list of “bad” indulgences – it is overabundant with protein, and fortunately my Creator didn’t choose to burden me with a peanut allergy – big hips, yes – but peanuts problems – no.

Not a bad consolation prize. I’m ever optimistic, in my pessimistic fashion, of losing weight, so I keep on grinning at the world and most days it smiles back at me.

Now back to chubby Ms. Bridget Jones – she ends up with the good guy in the end! She sticks to her humorous, whimsical way of being in the world and moves through life at her own pace. She has good friends at her side, a sense of humour firmly in place, a job she likes, a big heart and a generous nature. These things should always mean something in life. Character and innate goodness should always triumph over a person’s physical being. I think that’s why Mark Darcy loves Bridget Jones and why – at the end of the day – I am actually quite fond of myself!