I don’t generally say it this bluntly, but I’m fat.  Usually, when discussing my physical appearance, I say I’m voluptuous, or zaftig, or curvy.  I am all those things, I’m naturally built so that I will never be stick thin.  I will always have boobs and hips and curves, even if I get down to exactly the ideal weight for my height.  That’s just the way the women in my family are built.  Other than some minimal difficulty finding clothes that will accommodate this shape, I’m not unhappy with that.

It seems to me that I’ve always been overweight, but I know from looking at pictures of myself that this wasn’t the case.  The first four years of my life I was decidedly thin due to a heart defect.  Unlike most pleasingly plump baby pictures,  mine resemble nothing so much as a baby chimpanzee, all spidery limbs and big eyes.  Most of my pictures throughout grade school and junior high show a person who weighed about what she should for her height.  I was  a reasonably active kid, although I far preferred reading, writing and dreaming to anything that involved working up a sweat.  

If I had to pinpoint when the weight started to appear, I’d have to say freshman year of high school.  This, codincidentally, was also the year that I was first molested.   I’m not naive enough to say that one thing was solely the cause of the other, but it did play a part.  Fat is often about unhappiness and fear.   It is also about keeping unwanted advances, particularly sexual ones, away.  In this particular case, it didn’t work.  In later cases, it succeeded much better.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that being overweight has become both my excuse and my fortress.  Everything that doesn’t work in my life becomes somehow tied to my appearance.  Everything that scares me or makes me uncomfortable can be avoided because I’m fat.  I use my weight as a shield and a barrier.  I may not like being overweight, in fact I don’t like it, but I’m comfortable with it.  I’ve provided myself with a tidy excuse for everything I don’t want to face and don’t want to do.  I’d almost say I’d been quite clever, if I weren’t so unhappy in my fortress of solitude. 

I’ve suspected for years that another women lived inside the fortress I’ve made of my body.  She’s thin and sexy and funny and outgoing and fascinating.  She likes to do new things and go new places and she enchants and enthralls.  This woman is brave and bright and brimming with confidence.  She expects people to like and accept her, and she likes and accepts them right back.  This is the woman I want to be.  This is the woman I think I can be.  

The days of the fortress of fat are coming to an end.  Part of settling for more is becoming the best that I know I can be, which isn’t the person I am now.  I have a lot of fears and some doubts, and I don’t expect that this journey will be easy.  I only know it is a journey I have to take. 

In the next few days, I hope to set up a blog which will detail that journey in more detail.  If I had to make a guess I’d think that most of the issues that I will face as I tear down my fortress, and most of the reasons I built my fortress of fat in the first place, are reasons that are shared by others.  Hopefully telling the story of my journey will be of help to those people.  I’m sure it will be of help to me.

I’ve discovered that settling for more means recognizing when you are failing to work in your own best interests.  Being fat served me well for a long time.  It kept me protected when I needed it, and allowed me to feel safe when I wasn’t sure that safety was possible.  Now, however, the usefulness of my fortress has ended and it needs to be taken down.   I’m hoping something great will go up to replace it.

I’ve often wished I had a crystal ball or some sort of precognitive vision.  At the very least, it would have been nice to have someone at certain points in my life who would have stopped me from taking a certain path or steered me toward a different one.  I know we can only make decisions with the information that is available at the time,  but it is still seductive to think about what we might have done had we known more.  Alas, we never do.

I sometimes feel guilty for the opportunities I let pass, or for the times when I knew that something wasn’t right or wouldn’t suit me and still did it anyway.  For example, I knew the man who molested me would do so long before anything happened.  I look back now and see there was no way that the poor messed up girl back then could have stopped it from happening.  Still, I wonder how my life would have differed if she had.  I’ve had lots of those sorts of experiences in my life, and I always wonder, if I’d turned right instead of left, at least figuratively, would I be in a different place now?

There are always “what ifs” in life.  What if I had pushed hard to go to the Arts Academy when it was suggested I go.  Would I be a famous novelist now?  Why did I leave a steady, if not terribly lucrative or interesting job to take a job I knew almost from the beginning wasn’t right for me.  If I’d held out for the job I wanted would I be further ahead now?  What if I had listened to the voice inside me that said I was more than everyone was telling me I was.  Would I have discovered settling for more and happiness years ago?

Once, while trying to understand how I had gotten to where I was at that point, I joined a support group.  My membership in the group was not a success, for two main reasons.  One was that it generally became a competition with the prize going to the person who could tell the worst story of the harm done to them.  The second reason was that the group seemed dedicated to wishing things had been different, as thought the very act of wishing would change the past.  The hard truth is that you can wish all you like, but the past is the past, and no amount of wishing will make it be anything but what it is. 

If I did have a magic wand, or some mythic power, there are certainly things I would change about my past.  There are decisions I would unmake, and events I would cause to happen differently.  I suppose most of us, given the chance, would do that.  We aren’t going to be given that chance though and, like it or not, the past has made us what we are today.  I guess, for me, the best way to redeem the past is to try to build a better future.  I also try to give the past meaning by telling others what I know.  Not everyone has to go into the wasteland.  Some people can go and bring back stories, which will teach others,  who will then be able to escape the pain and anguish of the trek.  My past has made me stronger, and while I’d give up some of that strength if it would allow me to forget some of the things that I know, my past has also created the person I am today.  

Most days I like that person.

And, because I like that person, I’m making my peace with the past. 

I’ve always been a full speed ahead kind of person.  When I believe in something, really believe, I’ll give a thousand percent.  I also have a tendency to dream big.  I never want to just write a novel, I want to write a bestseller.  If I participate in the start of a company or an organization, I always believe we’ll be written up in national magazines for being the finest of our kind.  I’m not a woman that knows the value of halfway.  With me, it’s pretty much been all or nothing.

If you’re looking to make things happen,  having this sort of personality can be a blessing.  I can take charge, plan, get things done and inspire the troops, should there be troops to inspire.  I’ll put every scrap of my intelligence, will and emotion into making something work.  I’ll work weekends, holidays and even my birthday if that will get things closer to the stated goal.  Again, this sort of personality is a blessing, if you’re the person who employs me or who wants an organization to take off.  All you have to do is sit back and watch me go.  If you’re me, however, having this sort of personality is a blessing of the mixed variety at best.

One the credit side of the ledger is the fact that I can make things happen.  I can plan and solve problems and create something where there was very little or nothing.  I also can work very hard.  On the debit side of the ledger is the fact that I’ve always been able to do those things for other people and rarely been able to do them for myself.  Part of that is because, for a long while I craved approval,  and one way to get approval is to work to achieve things for others.  The other part of that equation is, for a long time, I didn’t think it was worth expending that much energy on myself.  Obviously, I’m thinking differently about things now.

One thing I’ve learned is that sometimes I need to take a step back and let other people run the show.  I’ve also learned that I can’t expect, nor should I expect, everyone to have the same drive and dedication as I do.  Different things motivate different people.  A lot of my frustrations and problems in the past have been caused by my expectation that everyone else should react that exact same way that I do.  They have also been caused by the fact that I take charge automatically, do the majority of the work, and then get mad when those I work with, who neither asked me to do all the work or take charge, fail to appreciate how wonderful I am.  Sometimes it amazes me how complicated I can make things for myself.

I guess I’ve learned, finally, that settling for more means that sometimes I have to do a little less.  I don’t have to be the super achiever or the most helpful girl in the room to win people’s love and approval. I have the right to say no or to set limits on what and how much I do.  I also have the right, I’d almost call it a duty, to turn some of my energy and talents toward furthering my own causes. 

I’ve also learned that my personality is not shared by everyone.  I can’t expect that everyone I work with will work in the same style that I do.   The amount of stress and tension that left my life when I learned that was immense. That doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated and angry on occasion, I still do.  It just means that now I can take a step back and look at whether or not I should be frustrated or angry, and then address any problems that might exist with a cool head.

Who knew that settling for more sometimes means doing a little less and, on occasion, stepping back instead of forward?  I can’t say I’ve conquered my tendency to try and take over the world, but I am making progress.  I’m also putting some of that ambition and energy to work for myself, which is also a great leap forward for me.  

All in all, I’d say that’s pretty good progress toward settling for more.

When I was 23 or 24, mercifully most of that period is a blur so I can’t assign an exact age, I lost a year.  I always call it that because it sounds nicer than saying I sunk into a depression so profound that I didn’t care if I lived or died.  I didn’t even have the motivation to make myself die, which is probably the reason I’m writing this today.  It wasn’t so much that I wanted to die, it was simply that too many things came crashing in on me and years of denial and pain surfaced and I just paused.  Like pressing the button on your DVD player and freezing the picture, I just stopped. 

Eventually, whatever pushed the pause button eased up.  I did not take drugs.  I didn’t go to therapy.  I just gradually started rebuilding my life and started moving again.  I’m still not quite sure how and why, but it did happen.

When I started rebuilding my life, the one thing I knew was that I never, ever, wanted to lose another year.  So, I started developing a strategy to ensure that wouldn’t happen.  First, I tried therapy.  That wasn’t a big success.  Next, I decided that I would simply build a nice safe little life.  I would build my barriers and I wouldn’t get too happy and I wouldn’t get too sad.  Basically, my life would be like oatmeal, probably good for you, and sort of satisfying, but really just bland.

Looking back now, the funny thing is that I thought I could actually build a life like that and it would work.  The problem is that it didn’t.  I left a secure job for a new job and got fired.  My mom got cancer.  I had to have heart surgery.  My mom died of cancer.  There were no barriers I could build that would keep the bad or sad things out.  Regardless of what I did, they kept showing up anyway.

The sad thing was that the barriers I built did keep out the good things in my life.  I limited my friendships because getting involved with people make demands on your emotions, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that.  I certainly wasn’t about to fall in love.  I never got too excited or too happy or had one perfect day where everything was just sublime.  In my quest to keep the dark away, which it became apparent I couldn’t do, I also shut out the light.

When you’ve lived with the darkness,  you always know that it might come back.  Depression runs on both sides of my family.   It’s part of our chemistry, like an artistic streak, or a love of reading.  Some of us are more prone to it  than others, and I seem to be one of those.  Nothing has, I’m pleased to say, been as bad as my lost year, I’m smarter now, and I know how to take care of myself better, and I also know the signs that the dark is trying to make a comeback. Still, the dark is always there, holding out a hand and asking me to take another turn around the floor.  That’s just how it is.

I suppose the best way to combat the dark is to let the light shine in.  I tried building a careful little life, and didn’t succeed in keeping the bad things out.  I just succeeded at failing to let the good things in.  Maybe, if I take some chances, the dark will get to take me for a spin again. 

Then again, maybe it won’t. 

I’m smarter now, and I’ve learned a few new steps of my own.  

I titled this post the way I did for a reason.  There’s a phrase from a song, “Looking for love in all the wrong places” that pretty much aptly sums up my romantic life until this point.  I have a history of picking men who aren’t of the highest caliber.  If there was a guy guaranteed to treat me badly, tell me he couldn’t love, or just generally express his complete disinterest in ever having anything to do with me, I was right there.   Some of those choices had to do with low self-esteem.  Some of them had to do with a desperate need to be with someone, anyone, regardless of whether or not being with that person made me happy.  Some of those relationships were created out of simple fear.

Picking the wrong men is a very easy way to ensure that you’ll never fall in love.  When you pick guys who are guaranteed to let you down, treat you badly, and leave you in the end,  there’s no guesswork involved.  Things will end badly, so there’s no need to worry about how things will end.  

In answer to those of you who may be wondering, I do believe in love.  I have empirical evidence that it exists.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes.  I’ve seen a husband, with unparalleled love and devotion, nurse his wife through an illness that was ultimately fatal.  I’ve known couples that met in high school and are still together, and perfectly content with each other’s company almost 50 years later.  I believe in love and I believe that love can happen.

I’m just not sure I believe it can happen to me.

It seems, to find love, you have to believe it is possible for you to find love.  That requires belief in yourself, belief that you have qualities that another person would find loveable and attractive.   On my good days, I do believe that.  Most days, I’m happy to say, are good days. 

The other side of finding love, however, is the one that gives me trouble.  In order to find love, you have to trust someone with your feelings and your heart.  That’s where the problem lies for me.  My experiences with men have not all been positive.  Some of them have been extremely negative.  I don’t trust very many people easily, and I’m not good at vulnerability and so, when it comes to finding love, it is easier to select partners I know I can’t love and who can’t love me.   It’s really a neat form of self sabotage that ensures 1) I won’t have to worry about someone getting close to me and hurting me because they’re not the sort of man I want to get close to me and 2) I won’t have to trust anyone because I’ve deliberately selected someone I know I can’t trust. 

I suppose, in the end, the question is whether or not I ultimately believe that what I’ll gain by opening myself up to the possibility of love will outweigh the possible negative consequences.  I’m not sure I believe that yet.  For a long time, I’ve kept myself out of situations where a relationship might develop.  I told people it was because I had poor skills when it came to picking men and I wanted to work on getting better at it.  That was only half the truth.  My goal was to pick men with whom I couldn’t possibly fall in love, so my man selection skills were right on target.   What needed improvement was my ability to open myself up to the possibility that being vulnerable and intimate with someone else could be a good thing and not something that would ultimately bring pain.

Trust has always been a big issue with me for a lot of reasons.  Part of truly loving someone is trusting them, knowing that they would never deliberately cause you pain or harm.  I really want to believe I’m capable of doing that, but I’m not sure if I am. 

Still, I know that, for me, part of settling for more includes experiencing, at least once, that love that I know does exist. 

I guess what I need to do now is work on believing that it can exist for me.  

I come from a long line of worriers.  My maternal grandmother was a world champion worrier.  My mother carried the worry gene too.  They worried about everything, what people thought,  what would happen next, what would happen to their loved ones,  you name it, they probably worried about it at some point.  For a lot of years I carried on the family tradition.  I worried about all sort of things, big and small, as though, by worrying, I would have some control over the outcome.

Gradually, as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that worrying never gets you anywhere.  If something bad is going to happen, it will most likely happen whether you worry about it or not.  The same goes for something good.   Worrying what people think about you is a waste of time, because people often form opinions completely independent of what a person might say or do in any given situation.  Worrying about a specific event isn’t like to change the event, or to make whatever is going to happen come out a different way.  In the end, worrying is generally pretty useless.

Since I’ve stopped worrying, or at least attempted to curtail my tendancy to worry, life has been a lot easier.  Take this Christmas for instance.  I’m meant to travel tomorrow for a Christmas celebration.  Right now, my section of the country is in the grip of a snow storm which is only supposed to get worse.  If I were in worry mode, I’d be worrying about having to drive tomorrow.  I wouldn’t sleep much tonight because I’d be getting up every five minutes to check the snow levels.  I’d be obsessing about what I should do and what I want to do and what those I’m meant to be meeting will think about what I do.  By the time I actually made a decision, which I wouldn’t be able to do until tomorrow anyway, I would be physically and mentally exhausted.

 Instead, I’ve made the decicision not to worry.  If the storm is simply an average snowstorm, I’ve lived in Michigan all my life and know how to drive in snow.  If it is, as they are predicting, a mega storm, then I’ll simply call and change my plans.  I can’t make that decision now as I have no way of knowing how things will be then.  While I wait to find out, I can choose to enjoy my day and sleep well tonight or I can choose to obsess and worry.  I choose the former.

As part of settling for more, I’ve had to learn that life will happen as it will, and that worrying and fretting won’t change things.  This certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to figure out the possible outcomes of your actions or that you shouldn’t act to change circumstances you don’t like.  It simply means that you can’t deal with a situation until you’re in it, and worrying about what might happen will only ensure you’re less ready to take action when action is necessary. 

When you have people to spoil and fuss over you, being sick isn’t so bad.  You can lie in state in bed or on a comfortable couch, and people will bring you soup or tea.  They may adjust your pillows or offer another blanket.  Perhaps someone will arrive with a new book or magazine or DVD to entertain you while you’re under the weather.  Provided you’re not deathly ill, but just feeling somewhat less than well, being sick and surrounded by those who want to take care of you can be a sort of mini vacation.

When, on the other hand, you’re single and it is the holiday season so you’re reluctant to bother your friends to ask them to do things for you, being sick can be the pits.  Generally, there is a moment when it dawns on you that, if you want orange juice, you’re the one who has to go get it.  This is usually after you’ve felt less than well for a few days, and you look like the walking dead, and have a cough that makes you sound like a consumptive who is only minutes from passing on.  Eventually, you man up and go out and get what you need because there really isn’t anything else you can do.  Then, if you’re anything like me, you come home and subside into a puddle of misery on your living room couch, at least for a moment or two.

Most of the time I am a big advocate of independence.   I don’t care to ask for help and I’d rather do things myself than depend on other people.  I suppose part of that is because there were times when there were no other people on which to depend.  It should also be said that being a staunch advocate for being on your own probably makes you less vulnerable.  I’m not terribly good at vulnerability.

On the other hand, I’m starting to realize that settling for more means asking for help when you need it.  I am always the first to help those who ask for it.  I also get a great feeling of pride and accomplishment from doing so.  I’m guessing other people might get the same sort of feelings if they were able to help me when I asked to be helped.  

The problem is that asking for anything makes you vulnerable and, as I referenced above, vulnerability is not one of my strong suits.  Asking for help also puts you in a position to be refused, and it requires you to rely on the goodwill and affection of other people.  If your requests get turned down too many times, or the affection and goodwill on which you were relying isn’t there,  you tend to be gun shy the next time you could use a little help.

The truth is, it is easier to rely on myself.  Quite frankly, I’m the only person I know of that I can count on not to let me down.  The other side of that that coin, however, is that relying only on myself can be lonely at times.  When you let people into your life this far and no farther, you don’t tend to have close, meaningful relationships.   It seems evident, when I examine things more closely, that settling for more is going to have to entail being vulnerable and trusting other people.  As much as I find that hard to do, I guess I’m going to have to learn.

Fashion is not my thing.  I’ve never been a tomboy but, for most of my life I’ve been unable to master the art of dressing like a girl.  Give me something with ruffles and I’ll tear one.  I rip the hems out of pants.  Pantyhose invariably get a run.  Put me in heels and I’ll either (a) break one or (b) fall off them which will generally cause me to (1) sprain an ankle, (2) make a fool of myself or (3) do both.  

All my life I’ve struggled with how to dress.  I entered adolescence in the 80’s which was the age of big hair, shoulder pads and leg warmers.  There are pictures of myself that I probably should have burned long ago.  It should be noted that I tried to master the fashion rules of the era.  I wore shoulder pads and looked like a very voluptuous linebacker.  I wore tastefully draped scarves and ended up dropping one end in my soup.  I didn’t have the patience for big hair, unless you count the perm I got in 9th grade.  Given that I had copper red hair at the time, and my hair had plenty of curl to start with, I ended up looking like I was either getting ready to star in the musical version of Annie or to stand in for bozo the clown.  It was not a look I would recommend.

As I grew older I decided simplicity is best.  If my shoe closet were a wine list from which you had to pick by number it would read as follows:  (1) brown loafers, (2) black loafers.  I eschewed anything with patterns, glitter, sequins or ruffles.  I had several pairs of pants in neutral colors.  I had several tops, and fewer blouses, also in relatively neutral colors.  Cardigan sweaters for winter, linen jackets for summer.   Basically I subscribed to the Katherine Hepburn theory of fashion, find something that works, buy it in every color and don’t get fancy.

For the past several years that theory has worked pretty well.  I may not be the best dressed or most resplendant person in the room, but I’m neat and clean and reasonably color coordinated, and that works well for me.  Or it did.  As part of the whole idea of settling for more, I’ve been examining my wardrobe and also paying more attention to the clothing I really like in catalogs and the outfits other people wear that I really admire.  I’ve discovered I like draped shawls and sweeping scarves.  I’ve found several skirts that I think are very cute.  I admire shoes and boots with heels, although I still don’t imagine I could walk very far in them.  In short, I’ve discovered that I’d prefer to add a little more flair for fashion to my plain Jane wardrobe.

My problem now is that part of the reason I have always dressed the way I do is that I felt I couldn’t carry off anything else.  I always wanted to be one of those women who swept into a room looking unique and glamorous and undeniably sexy.  The inner me always wanted slinky black dresses and silk blouses and cashmere shawls, but was just afraid that the outer me couldn’t carry it off.  I guess I’m still afraid of that. 

For me, part of the journey of settling for more is being who I really am.  My gut is telling me it is time to try some different wardrobe styles, to dress more like the woman I want to be and less like the woman I think I am.  I probably will feel awkward at times, and I may even fall off my shoes and sprain my ankle, but I also might find that dressing differently makes me feel differently about my body and about myself.   If nothing else, it will certainly remind me that I’m a long way from that awkward teenager who used to drop her scarf in her soup. 

At least now, if I drop my scarf in my soup, I can laugh about it instead of feeling mortified.  Anyway you look at it, I’d say that’s progress.

I’ve never wanted to have children.  I get as gooey over babies as the next person.  When a baby or small child snuggles their head into my neck and gives that special contented sigh, my heart twangs a little, just as I expect most people’s would.  I find small children, in small doses, to be quite adorable and fun to be around.  The way they notice the world and the questions they ask can be very entertaining.  I’m also, when I want to be, quite good with kids.  I like kids just fine.  I just don’t feel any pressing need to have any of my own.

It is somewhat odd being a woman who doesn’t want children.  Everyone just expects that you do want them and, if you don’t have them, that the lack has somehow left a hole in your life.  I read the blogs of women who have desperately tried to have children, women like Tertia, and Julia and Julie, and I can sympathize and rejoice with their ups and downs.  I don’t, however, understand the desperate longing.   

I’ve often wondered if this lack of longing to have children means I’m missing something that most women have.  After all, women have a uterus for a reason, and for most women, having a uterus seems to mean you should want to use it.  Society seems to expect you to use it.  If you’re a man and you never have children, people can spotlight your fulfilling career, or your happy home-life and no one will think anything of it.  If you’re female and don’t have children, you may be a success everywhere else, but that lack of children will somehow work its way into the story.

For me, the question of whether or not to have children has always come down to this:  if I can’t say absolutely that I want to have a baby, than I shouldn’t have one.  I’ve never been able to say that.  I want to write and work on my career and learn new things and have new experiences and indulge myself in ways that probably wouldn’t happen if I had a child.  That may sound selfish, but I think recognizing that is what I want and choosing not to have a kid is less selfish than having a kid I’m not really sure I want and then realizing after the fact that I’m not up for the challenge. 

Someone, George Clooney I think, said that raising a child is the most important thing you can do and if you can’t do it 110% you shouldn’t do it.   I’ve never felt the need or the desire to make that sort of commitment to having and raising a child.  I admire those who do it, but I also know it’s not for me.  

I guess, in this case settling for more means settling for what some people would consider to be less.  Maybe I will miss out on the joy of having some little tyke call me Mommy, but I’m willing to accept that.   I’m guessing, as I continue this journey, I’ll discover that settling for my version of more requires compromises and, sometimes, going against what the accepted version of more is.  I’m o.k. with that.  Everyone has their own version of more. 

Mine just doesn’t happen to include being a mother.

My body did not come from the factory in great working order.  I was born with a heart defect.  My skin is extremely sensitive and I spent most of my childhood and adolescence battling eczema.  My eyes, I have been told, owe quite a lot to my brain, which somehow rewired things to let me see as well as I do.  Given that, with corrective lenses, my vision in 20/20,  I can’t complain about the migraines that sometimes occur.   I’ve had two open heart surgeries to correct heart problems and everything, knock wood, seems to be working well in that department.  I’ve also outgrown the eczema that plagued me when I was young and, with a strict adherence to non scented lotions and soaps, experience nothing but small breakouts. 

If this is starting to sound like the blog post of a hypochondriac, it isn’t meant to be.  If anything it is more a segue into a discussion of why I’m not a hypochondriac.  I have always been a firm proponent of mind over matter.  Some part of my body or another has been in revolt for most of my life.  If I gave in to all the itches, headaches, respiratory infections etc. that plague me, I’d be nothing more than La dame aux camellias wilting gracefully onto my bed with a consumptive cough.  I’ve always chosen not to be that person. 

Still, every once in a while my body throws up something weird, and I suddenly have a Physician’s Desk Reference in my head.  All I can do is catalog the latest possibilities, which become more dire by the hour.  Take the latest for instance.  Today, while changing from work clothes to something more comfortable, I noticed I have a dent in my leg.  It is on the outside of my left leg, right above the knee.  The skin is puckered inward, rather like someone had shot me with a bullet and left a scar.  The knee is not swollen or discolored, there is no bruise or particular pain, there is just a dent.  It is vaguely disconcerting.

 Of course, my first thought was blood clots and twisted tendons and horrible things.  Then I realized I’d been walking around all day without pain or difficulty.  If the tendon were twisted, I imagine it would hurt.  Same with a blood clot.  First, I don’t have and have never had a tendency to throw clots.  I’ve had enough procedures to know if I did.  Second, if it were a clot, it seems as though there would be some tenderness or discoloration around the site.  There is neither.

My best guess, if I had to make a guess, is one of two things.  Either that dent has always been there, and I just never noticed it before, or I’ve put a dent in my leg because I spend so much time with it propped up on my other leg, holding the laptop on which I am typing this post.  Neither supposition is impossible, and either is far more likely than the first dire scenarios I conjured up.

I guess part of settling for more is learning when my body needs care, and when I’m making mountains out of molehills.  Times when my body needs care would include last week when I went to the doctor after several days of a cold and after having what felt like an asthma attack.  That turned out to be a severe respiratory infection which can be cured with an inhaler.  I’m breathing easier, both because I have an inhaler and because I have piece of mind.   

Other times, like the dimple in my leg, I simply need to step back and get a bit of perspective.  Most likely the dimple will work itself out in a few days.  Possibly it won’t.  Part of settling for more is learning to treat my health as important, but not to obsess about it.

After all, I may be held together with scotch tape and glue, but I’ve made it this far.