Enough

"Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough.  Good enough.  Successful enough.  Thin enough.  Rich enough.  Socially responsible enough.  When you have self-respect, you have enough." - Gail Sheehy

Every time I see Oprah Winfrey on a Weight Watchers commercial, I cringe.  Really Oprah?  One of the wealthiest, most successful, most brilliant women in the world is dieting again and for some reason she needs to take us there with her.  I can guess that the reason is her recent acquisition of ten percent of the stock of Weight Watchers International.  I'm not sure if that heightens my disappointment in her or lessens it.  Doesn't really matter.  I am deeply disappointed.

Like Oprah, I've struggled with my weight for much of my adult life.  I'm not the heaviest woman I know but I'm not the lightest.  I am not the most beautiful or the least beautiful.  I am not the most successful or the least successful.  I'm not the brightest or the dimmest.  But I have enjoyed a measure of success.  I'm a good mother.  I've had a pretty rich career.  I've made a good home for my family.  I'm a good sister and daughter and friend.  When I turned sixty, I decided that should be enough.  I don't want to live in deprivation.  I want to be able to eat the occasional dish of ice cream and enjoy a glass or two of champagne.  I want to stop feeling wholly inadequate because as hard as I've tried, I'm never going to be model thin again.  After all these years I managed to convince myself that it doesn't matter.  I am me and that is enough. 

I have always been a great admirer of Oprah.  She is brilliant and accomplished and in my eyes, a beautiful woman.  She dresses with panache, her skin glows and her smile can light a room.  She is by no means model thin nor is she morbidly obese.  She is just herself, a cut above we ordinary souls.  Learning to accept myself, even love myself happened in part because she lived the example.  So how is it now that it seems I got it so wrong?  One of the richest, most accomplished women in the world at sixty-one years old still can't accept herself and her body.  What hope is there for we lesser mortals?  And why are we so stuck in this distorted view that even Oprah can't accept that she is enough?  How sad for us all.

Next

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Lewis B. Smedes

 

I un-Christmased the house on the weekend.  It is a job I never enjoy.  As I took each ornament off the tree and wrapped it in tissue to be boxed and stored away, I reflected on the fragility of life.  I wondered if when my dad wrapped some of those very same ornaments after the Christmas of 1991, he did it with tremendous sadness in the knowledge that he would likely not live to see another Christmas.  I wondered if I will have a sense of that when my last Christmas has passed.  

While removing the boughs and feathers from the banister, I remembered all the resolutions I made while doing the very same job the year before.  I failed at most of them.  I decided there is no point in promising myself that this would be the year that I lost weight...got organized...learned to let go...and so on, and so on and so on.  I failed at them all last year and the year before that and the year before that.  I don't want to set myself up to fail again.  I don't like failure.  After so much practise, I should be better at it than I am.

Just before the new year, I read an article written by a self-help guru.  They seem to be everywhere these days.  His suggestion for starting the new year right was to end the last by forgiving someone who has failed you.  After thinking about it for a time, I decided to do just that.  I forgave myself.  At sixty years old, I'm still a work in progress.  I will try again.