Holiday Round Up

I survived the holidays! I hope everyone can say the same. It was actually a lovely time. My mom was on pretty good behavior already having one kid who can't be around her. I think it kept her on her best behavior. It was a nice time. We spent a lot of time together. A lot. We got along really well and actually discussed some interesting things. A few things I learned or rather am beginning to accept and not care about:


1. My mom and I define beauty differently. She equates it with thinness and I don't therefore us seeing eye to eye on this is not probable. That being said it doesn't mean we can not have a dialogue. I showed her the pictures of Harriet Coleman I posted on here and said can you really tell me in all seriousness she is not beautiful? She said no, she is beautiful. We actually had an interesting discussion about it. I said to her straight up I think a lot of your issues are centered around never feeling pretty and what you offered being your body, specifically your thinness. I said while I get where it comes from it would have been nice growing up to not have been told my body was wrong, not normal, and so on, but rather to have had the differences accepted. My mom is 5'4" and petite, I am 5'8" so off the bat I was never going to look like her.


2. We can define things differently and not hurt one another by trying to convince the other. My mom is free to think thin is better. I can not take that away from her, but she does not have to force her opinions on me. I can set boundaries of what is and is not up for discussion and I can calmly enforce these. I did not think this was possible I think it could be.


3. My mom will probably always have something to say about what I am eating or try to control it. I got sharp with her once, when I was eating a cracker with cheese before a dinner party and she chided me not to fill up. Later the next day I said to her, straight up do not talk about what I am eating or how much of it I am eating. Period. I have to learn and I have to learn on my own. Your days of being the food police are gone.

4. I may never be thin enough for her, and I do not care. She does. I think my mom respects me seeking her approval less, but it scares her. I feel this weird push pull about it that she does not want to have to worry about me or help me with it, but she also does not know what her role is exactly without it.

5. She has fabulous taste. I mean my mom's clothes are legendary. She said instead of giving stuff away or to your friends maybe I should save things for you. At first I thought YES PLEASE, then I listened to my inner voice that said hmmmm this sounds like a bad idea, and has set up written all over it. I am not sure why, maybe because I should be healthy and lose weight because I want to not to chase someone else's closet. I'm not sure what set me off but I honored it and said I'm not sure that's a great idea.

6. Sometimes when she sucks it has nothing to do with me. I have two little cousins who are 7 & 12. They are awesome and they think I am magic. I was chatting with them decorating cookies for Santa, and my mom not once but twice made sort of weird remarks about it. Things along the lines of, "Anna are you doing a monologue over there." I did not care for it. I called her out the next day. She actually was annoyed at my uncle and his not helping. I said to her so why did you say something mean to me? I said it made me want to close down and feel really self conscious. Why not just say to uncle man, I am trying to get dinner ready, Anna's entertaining the girls can you participate please? She completely agreed. What was nice about this was I got what I wanted out of it. Told her that sucked without anger, and heard her side.


My brother sent us Christmas text messages. Lame. I have decided we all get one holiday where we regress to being 17 years old again. This was his so I hoped he enjoyed it. I am still not sure what I did but I have left voicemails and sent texts so it's not like I have not tried to figure it out.

RGC and I kept in constant contact despite family obligations and the holidays. I was curious to see how that would go. I have yet to tell him anything about my weight history or even this blog. I am trying something different not just spewing my life story.

I went through lots and lots of old family photos. It was really cool and really weird. So much has changed. Not just me, but locations, people, who's even alive anymore, it was awesomely weird. I went through them alone for a while and then my mom joined in filling in some gaps.


 Below is a gem I stumbled across.

Am I working that Santa photo or what? 

Not so much a gem, but if a photo could some up my relationship with my mother, this would be it. She's all pulled together and perfect-ish and I look adopted and like I was big into oversized men's clothes. Do. Not. Understand this Anna.

Mama at my first birthday. How amazing is her hair?

Clearly my love affair with food started young. 

How did everyone else make out? Hope everyone survived and had a lovely holiday.