Twenty-two

My daughter and I started to play this game at bed time where she picks a number between zero and thirty-seven, (my current age) and I tell her a little bit of history from my life. I told her about the time when I was 9 and was in 4-H and trained a seeing eye dog for a year; 31 and met her for the first time; 0 and spent my first Thanksgiving making her Gramma think I was ready to be born only to make her wait another week; 11 and played Abigail Adams in my 5th grade school play (we had a great political discussion that night and she told me she voted at school....in a race "between the football player and Barack Obama." She said Barack Obama won. She couldn't remember the other guy....."PoopEye?" she asked.

Tonight she picked 22.

I told her about my time as a dog-walker, walking beagles and border collies and terriers and golden retrievers and yellow labs. I told her that I work with someone now that I was friends with at 22!

I didn't tell her I was 60 pounds overweight and sad and anxious and quit school for a year. I didn't tell her that walking dogs was what got me it of bed in the morning. I didn't tell her I was miserable in my skin and felt huge all the time, avoiding mirrors and beaches and hid cookies in my bedroom and ate Ben and Jerry's pints at a time and smoked Marlboro Reds.

Instead I told her the things that I know we have in common. I told her I read lots and lots of books and I read lots and lots of comics.

She lit up and hopped out of bed.

"Close your eyes"
She puts three books in my hand.
Her brand new issues of Spider girl.
(Only she calls her SpiderWoman. I love that!)
"Can we sort comics tomorrow?"
"I'd love to."

My weight, no matter what it was....no matter what it is....it does not define me. It doesn't define any of us. Our experiences do.

Be resilient. Reframe.

How do YOU reframe?