On being fat but also not fat at the same time

I'm...I dunno, fat I guess? I technically weigh a lot of pounds and I wear a size that most stores don't carry, so that makes me categorically fat.  I think. 

The problem with that label is that I can't see it.  Almost ever.  I literally look in the mirror and do not see a fat person.  (The only time I can see it is when I'm sitting facing a mirror while wearing a tight shirt, or am naked looking at my profile.)  This isn't a matter of having great self-esteem or total body acceptance or anything like that - I'm usually painfully aware of the amount of space I occupy and am never comfortable with that.  It's just that my brain apparently doesn't equate "takes up a lot of space" with "fat". 

I'm really not explaining this well.  When I look in the mirror, or when I picture myself in my head, I see a normal sized person, and I'm pretty sure it's a person that wears like, a size 12.  It drives me nuts, because I want to have a proper mental picture of myself, and I can't find it. I stare at people on the street trying to find a person that's the same size as me, and I never can.

It seems like a good problem to have, to not focus on your flaws, but it's not.  It makes it easier to ignore huge (punny!) problems, and that's not good.  I'm aware that I need to weigh less pounds, for health reasons, but since I don't usually see problems when I look in the mirror, it's easier to ignore that fact and eat some more cookies.

The problem with my mental picture is - how do I fix this?  I mean, everything people say involves learning to accept yourself no matter what size you are.  My problem is that I'm too accepting of me, and I think I look completely fine even when I don't.  Maybe it's a matter of getting rid of some of my self-esteem...except I'm already painfully insecure about my size.  I just can't see that size in a mirror.

This entry is extremely babbly and doesn't make any sense and doesn't have a point.  I'm trying to remember what I was thinking about when I started it...oh, it had to do with the fact that the more I wear dresses, the more comfortable I am with shorter ones, and then I went off into body acceptance and then I started thinking about how I'm too accepting and then this happened.

But really what I was going for is: Look at my thighs, guys.  I don't care.

Cutting some slack

I suppose this should be Creativity, Part Two.

I haven't given up yet on making things, apparently.  I am currently in the process of attaching my quilt blocks together.  It looks pretty ridiculous.  My blocks are all different sizes, with crazy patterned fabric that maybe sort of coordinates if you squint a bit, and the seams are all wonky and all over the place, and clearly I didn't cut right to begin with because everything is so lopsided.

But I'm okay with all that.  I'm definitely not worried about perfection with this.  I tried to learn how to quilt once before just out of high school, and I gave up because no matter how hard I tried, I always cut something crooked, or made a wobbly seam, or otherwise horked it up.  Everyone always says how quilting is a math-based precision hobby, and they're right, it totally is.  So I gave up.

With this quilt that I'm apparently making though,  I'm not worried about any of that.  I'm making it, flaws and all, and it'll probably never lie flat because of all the weird angles.  When I see something hanging crooked, I leave it.  When I know I cut a weird angle, I leave it.  It's not that I'm not trying to cut and sew straight, it's that I'm not putting a ton of pressure on myself to get it perfect.

Brian doesn't get that - his philosophy is to do your absolute best and take pride in your work, which seems to say that you can't take pride in something that didn't take everything out of you.  The thing is, the pride I'll get from this quilt will come from the fact that I actually pushed through it and finished.  That's enough for me.  I don't even know if I like quilting - why beat myself up over it the first time through?

With knitting though, I can't seem to let perfection go.  I've completely ripped apart everything I've attempted to knit so far.  I haven't even gotten past a fifth row because I'll find some flaw (like the fact that I've randomly picked up 6 extra stitches) and start completely over. (Part of this is due to the fact that I haven't yet learned how to fix mistakes any other way.)  I just can't let myself make a lopsided, full of holes, weirdly-tensioned, clearly-first-time scarf or whatever.  It's ridiculous, because like quilting, I don't even know if I like knitting.  I'm certainly starting to hate it.

So what's the deal here?  Why am I totally cool with a terrible quilt but not a terrible scarf?  This is my second time picking up knitting, same as quilting, so it's not a need for first-time-perfection.

Fuck it, maybe I'll just switch to crochet.

Creativity

Recently apparently I decided to try and become more creative or something.  I was looking through my mother-in-law's student artwork, and I was so impressed by her ability to create something beautiful that lasts a long time.  (Seriously, look at these.)  Then my friend Alex wrote a play that's being performed, and I look at the video game controllers and consoles(!) that Brian has built, and I watch my father and my sister cook and bake these amazing things, and I look at Brian's afghan that his grandmother made for him, and I realize that I have nothing like that of my own.  I feel like I'm not creative at all.

So I decided to try and change that.  I told Brian I wanted a sewing machine for my birthday, a request which he obliged, and I have since made one small May Day pocket that I loved, two messenger bags that I like, a small purse which I absolutely do not like, and 23 quilt blocks that are poorly cut, badly sewn, and just generally look kind of weird.  But I still made them!   I also got a knitting set to learn how to knit (again), and I am very much going to attempt to not give it up again (again.)

So that's what I'm doing.  And maybe learning to do this will spark some kind of passion for creation in me, and I'll get better at it and then start to like it more and then I can say that I made lovely things too, and I'll feel like I contributed somehow to the world, even if it was just with a lopsided quilt.