I’ve come to realize that maybe the reason none of my pants fit lies with the large volume of chicken nuggets and fries I eat. I still weigh roughly the same, so it’s gotta be all of the convection oven food that’s made my belly and hips as round as a two- or three-month pregnant woman. (You laugh, but I’m not kidding.)

So this afternoon when I got home from work and the chicken nug-nug cravings hit, I decided I’d do something different: have a salad instead of fries. (There won’t be any pictures, because I thought of this after I started eating.)

Even better, my grandparents brought home a bunch of fresh veggies and basil from their garden at the campground they stay at every summer, so I took advantage of those. Instead of eight chicken nuggets and a handful of fries, I made six chicken nuggets and a smallhuge salad. (I realize that the huge salad will probably equal the fries. But I digress.)

In the past, I’ve used some not-so-healthy “dieting” techniques. At fifteen, sixteen, I felt bad about myself on the inside and those feelings quickly spread to how I felt about my body. I became dangerously thin (I went from about 125 lbs to 100 lbs in a matter of about four to six weeks) and, because I’m hypoglycemic, got sick most of the time from not eating. I don’t like to think about what I might have done to my body during this time, or what I could have done if I were to continue on this path. Luckily, a friend of mine told on me and my mom immediately began harassing me to eat. At my lowest weight, my collarbones stuck out so far “they were gross,” as my friend says. I was never officially diagnosed with an eating disorder, but those negative images of my body have never completely left me. I relapse sometimes, and sometimes I’m perfectly content with how I look.

Every time my jeans get a little tight, I freak out. It’s hard to keep from going back to my old ways.

It’s also hard to ignore that my favorite jeans have to be greased onto me, and even then I can’t breathe if I wear them.

Today I found a happy medium, and I hope that I can stick with it and continue to be comfortable with it. I want to continue to love myself and be good to myself, so that I can have the future I want with the person I want to be with.

A lot of people don’t understand my relationship with Mike, but here’s the gist of it: he makes me happy, both with him and with myself. He doesn’t demand anything from me. He helps me see the real me and the potential I have. I don’t think he even knows this, but by being with him, I’ve learned to love myself even more than I did before. I’ve become a lot more comfortable with myself since I met him. Even when we fight and no matter how many times we’ve broken up, we always come out stronger.

I don’t write about the mushy, gushy stuff here often because I think it’s lame. Everyone with a blog writes about how awesome their relationship is and blahblahblah. (The truth is, it’s not awesome. Sometimes it’s fucking ugly, and anyone who pretends any differently on their blog needs to seriously look themselves in the mirror.) I want people to know that there’s more to me than the guy I date. I’ve read blogs where most of it says “Blahblahblah and I did this today, and Blahblahblah and I are so in love and Blahblahblah is so awesome.”

But I also want people to know that there’s a reason I am with Mike. It’s not because he’s a great kisser or because he has a relatively good taste in movies (though I seriously cannot understand why he thinks the new Halloween remake-sequel is worth seeing). Those things are good qualities and get him an A+, but they’re not enough. Frankly, most people just wouldn’t get it, because I just don’t have the right words to explain exactly how he makes me feel. “Alive” is a good one, and so is “wonderful.”

Anyway. I have no idea how a post about salad got to this point. ADHD, anyone?