Appearances Can Be Deceiving

I realized last night, when I was thinking about how I would be meeting up with an old friend today, that this is the first time I have not felt awful about how I would appear when seeing someone I hadn’t gotten together with in a long time. Even though I was already overweight in high school, my figure continued to drastically swell over the years and, consequently, encountering people I didn’t often see always left me feeling like I had really let myself go. Even over the last few years, I still did this when seeing past colleagues, or others I have known, since I knew I just kept getting bigger. It was like each time I ran into an old acquaintance I would have an immediate ‘before’ image pop into my head – one that reflected the ‘me’ they had last seen – and that picture was always much, much smaller than the version standing there.

But not today. Today I am looking forward to seeing my best friend from my elementary years. We quickly drifted apart when we went to secondary school, but were fortunately able to reconnect a little online over the last couple of years. I briefly ran into her once just prior to the Christmas before this last one and it was exactly the type of mentally embarrassing situation I mentioned above – worse even, given those specific circumstances. Yet this afternoon, when I see her and we have the chance to finally catch up, I look forward to not feeling like I am less than I may have been in her eyes because of my weight. I am certainly not saying that is how she (or anyone else, for that matter) would have seen me in my heavier days! It is simply the image that I was worried I was portraying.

No more! Today I will not be concerned about how I look; I won’t think twice about how my long lost friend might perceive me. Instead, I will enjoy catching up with a great person and will savour one more moment of normalcy that I withheld from myself for far too long.