Wednesday 18 November 2009

I Will Fix You

OK, I admit it. From time to time I Google the Fig, as I Google all exes, former roommates, people who wronged me, old colleagues who failed upwards… you get the idea. It is a fantastic form of procrastination, and every once in a while has led to an actual story idea (some of the people in the categories above are journalists, which means lots of articles to read…)

The Fig is one of the most invisible thirtysomethings I’ve ever met, at least in 21st century terms – no Facebook, no Linked In, no social media. (And he’s a writer, too!) Hits for his name on Google have been the same for as long as I’ve been searching: reviews of a play he wrote more than a decade ago; a quote in an article he gave as a favor to a friend. (The author was a she; I never asked if he’d dated her.)

The other day I popped his name into Google and found a new hit: a photo of him at a work-type party in January 2008. The photo makes me wonder a lot of things about him, and realize I’ll never be able to ask him. (Well, I could ask, but I’d never get a reply.)

The act of Googling the Fig, and of spending so much time (or really, any time) thinking about him and what he’s doing and why the hell I care so much has given me a lot to think about. Basically, why it is I get so hung up on people, and can't, to carry on (or mix) the metaphor, put the phone down. There are very few men I get particularly excited about, but when I do, watch out. I can be a lunatic.

Why is this? I wondered, as I stared at the photo of the Fig (taken, I might add, from an unflattering angle -- even if you account for my rose-tinted glasses, objectively he is a whole lot more attractive than the photo). I think it's because I think whoever it is I've set my sights on is going to fix me and my life. I think he is going to be The Answer – the golden ticket that makes me happy -- maybe in the way I looked at losing weight as The Answer.

Of course I knew – and thought I believed -- that losing weight would not solve all of my problems. I hated it when people would say things to me like – and this is an actual quote – “If you just lost weight your life would be perfect.” But deep down I must have believed, or wanted to believe, what they said, because this morning I woke up and saw 9 stone 13 (139 lbs) on the scale and felt… nothing. Not glee – just nothing. (I guess weight really is just a number, or so I’ve been reading for years.) And then huge disappointment. I don’t know what I thought would happen – that the sky would explode into fireworks that spelled my name like something out of the movie Annie?

I guess losing weight has always been something I could focus on – something productive I could do (or, as the case was for years, not do and despair about). And for the past couple of years, whenever any part of my life has been spectacularly crummy (work, romance, etc), I’ve been able to focus on an area – weight – where I was making great progress. And now, it seems, the easy high I can get off that particular success is over.

Yesterday I met up (separately) with two friends I haven’t seen in months. I had very little to answer to the “So what have you been up to lately?” question and I didn’t like it. (Losing a couple more pounds and otherwise maintaining my weight loss is not, in my mind, a satisfactory answer, even if it is one specific and positive thing I’ve done. I suppose I should be kinder to myself – I really could have let things go awry with all the upheaval I’ve had this year.) Where has the whole year gone? For the most part, watching other people get on with their lives (see “Googling the Fig,” as above) – and not doing things that I love.

“You don’t seem very happy,” my friend T. said gently, just as I was thinking the same thing. Time to do something about that.

2 comments:

  1. So true Beth, how hitting that "magic" number can be an empty victory. Yes, you've lost the weight and your cute clothes fit, and of course that feels great. But what generally makes you unhappy being overweight (the underlying problems, not the excess weight itself) will still be there when you're at goal weight. Unhappy when fit, still unhappy when thin. It can be an unexpected slap in the face when you've imagined that moment to be something so much more.

    It's fixing the other more complicated stuff that is the real bitch.

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  2. Great post, as always Beth. Lots to ponder in that one -- I guess we all, to some degree, succumb to that idea of the "perfect" life once we lose weight. It's a seductive little thought, isn't it? I will say that I'm so incredibly impressed that you've kept your head together given the upheaval in your work world over the past year -- and that is all the more impressive when one considers that you're part of an industry undergoing a massive upheaval and shedding of jobs. So..for what it's worth, that's major in my book. Maybe you aren't exactly unhappy, but just ready for the next challenge?

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