Went on a run, wrote three songs, drank lots of water, had pizza for dinner, met up with my songwriting friends, played my beautiful Gibson guitar, got to hang out with Emily, admired the beautiful flowers in the yard, thought about how I’m going to release my next album, wore my “Hope Dunbar Band” tshirt for the whole world to see and fell asleep content. Those are my wins.
There was a picture of me and two preschool friends taken in my front yard. I know it was me, Greg Carr and I think Kelly Bonner but I’m not 100% on Kelly being the third 4 year old. They were these two tiny little adorable munchkins and I was the giant godzilla 4 year old beside them double in size. Cute picture. Nice photo. Somehow it seared into my brain my inherent hugeness. I was always the tallest, the biggest, the biggest feet, the growing out of everything, the not small adorable little girl everyone loves little girls to be. My tiny friends playing hide and go seek and hiding in cupboards and I had grown out of cupboard size probably by 18 months.
Back then, when I was ages 4-18, I did not know I was an Enneagram 4 and I did not know that my cryptonite was comparison and envy. It is the joy stealer and trickster of the Enneagram 4 and so we gotta keep it in check or else it will try to destroy us. Yeah, that would’ve been helpful information back then when I was the queen of comparison.
Not thin enough, not blonde enough, not as skinny as she was, not as popular as she was, not as smart or cool or funny as they were. All. the. time. Mixed with some classic ‘fat’ comments here and there by well-meaning classmates, it was the perfect recipe for believing I was a disgusting bag of lard from about 10 years old until 36 or 37.
I wanted my hands on some dexatrim so bad, some slim fast shakes, will power, whatever. I took my mom’s Phen Phen once back when it was completely legal and prescribed by doctors and was so hopped up and jumping out of my skin that one day that I was too chicken to take it again. And then I gave myself shit for being too much of a wimp to not be able to stay on drugs. Come on, Hopie.
Sometime in my 30s I stopped absolutely hating myself and getting to a “well, this is you” neutral stance. I thought that was as good as it was ever going to get until I started doing the real work of unlearning old bullshit, putting old half-baked stories directly in the trash, asking myself if it was OK to start learning how to not just tolerate my human presence, but allow myself to be here and I’ve been working on it ever since.
Turns out? I actually wasn’t fat for all those years. I look at pictures of my 17 year old self and remember how horrible I felt and how ashamed I was for looking the way I did. Turns out? I looked fine. In the pictures I look like a normal 17 year old. I wonder if anyone ever looked at that picture and thought, “she needs to get herself on a program.” Mental health program: yes. Weight loss program? Probably not.
So why am I trying to lose weight? First, because I want to. I just want to be at a smaller size. Second, to prove that I can do it and that it’s not impossible. Third, to give myself another do over to try and be proud of myself like I never was for all those years. Never proud. I’ve only learned how to do it in small ways here and there over the past few years. Can you do over the first 44 years of life? Probably not. Can you try and at least stop kicking your own ass for the last 44 years? That’s the mission. That’s the point of this whole thing. Have a great day.