Compare and Despair (For Peridot)

Very recently, one of my very good friends (originally from LighterLife) gave me some fantastic advice.  She said, quite clearly, "compare and despair" - in response to yet another one of my desperate emails about where I was in life (well, strictly speaking, where I wasn't) and why was everything soooooo hard.  At the heart of every sentence lay one key theme - comparison with others.  I was measuring myself against Alpha females (for work) and super fertile females (for family - lack of) and on and on and on.  I don't want to be an Alpha female (really, I don't) but I like to beat myself up fairly regularly about my lack of career - even more so since last year's employment disaster.  And then there's the infertility, which, however much you dress it up, feels like failure every single month.  And sometimes even twice a month, just for extra kicks (from my screwed up cycle).

Anyway, this post is NOT about me.  Or for me.  It's for Peridot, author of   A Weigh to Go - From Munter to Minx,  who is celebrating her 39th birthday tomorrow.  

Because, Peridot, this is what I want to share with you - comparing yourself with others means that you don't see all the good bits about you.  And all the good things - friendships and relationships - that you have created.  The weight issue is complicated because you have the extra condition to factor in - while others can seemingly dine on fine wine and gourmet food, your body wants you to survive on the calorific intake and diet of a rabbit.  Well, that's not fair, in anybody's book.  Interesting, if you read one of the recent posts from Refuse to Regain, entitled True Confessions of a Once Thin Person, it seems that even thin people can't eat what they like.  Not really.  Not in the end.

Whenever we compare ourselves to others, we'll always lose out.  When I was doing LighterLife, others were losing weight faster than me.  That was tough. But instead of focusing on their weight losses, I should have just monitored my own.   I know it was the same for you but, with dogged determination, against all the odds, you made it happen.  You lost a lot of weight.  Sometimes we forget how far we have come.

You wrote about living the slim dream on your blog; what does that mean for you?  Can YOU create that?  If the author of Eat, Pray, Love were here - she'd say you could.  State what you really want, your heart's truest desire and go for it.  As long as nobody gets hurt.  

I hope tomorrow that you'll celebrate all the good things in your life and the things that you have already created.  And they are many.   You are kind and sensitive, clever and determined.  And you love Labradors! I applaud your cycling efforts, I really do.  And if you eat cake on your special, make sure, 100 per cent, that you enjoy and savour every single bite.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.  

Comments

[Lesley]

Hear Hear!!

Lesley x

[Coley]

What a lovely post. xxx

[Peridot]

Thank you for this. Sorry to have been such a misery - I do think there's something about birthdays that highlights dissatisfaction. Still, I apologise unreservedly for being a moany old cow and I will listen to your wise words and try and sketch out that slim dream in a post soon. And not let the gulf between that and now depress me. And I LOVE the cake pic - what a cute cake!

love
Peridot x