Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Trees (12/05/05)
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TITLE: Hmmm | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sally Hanan
12/12/05 -
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Seconds later I was standing in front of our bathroom mirror, checking out my newer folds of flab. Middle age had crept up on me unawares.
***
It’s no fun looking like a tree trunk. I am used to being petite, a slim willowy thing that blows in the wind. No longer can I eat any food in sight – the word “calories” actually holds meaning these days.
Honestly, I think a more appropriate description of my shape would be an “abdominal aneurysm”. Every time I sit down the dreaded flab bulges out. With a tree trunk, each wide ring within means a sign of a good year. That’s what my ever-widening flab means: it means I’ve had some good years lately.
“God,” I’ve prayed, “please give me willpower. Give me what I need to get thin again. Help me to start exercising (even though I never have); this is a NEED, not a greed!”
Hmmm, I heard Him say once, as he rubbed His white beard in thought.
I know exactly what that “hmmm” means. It means I have to get up off my blessed assurance and put faith into action. It’s one of God’s DIY answers (Do It Yourself).
So what do I do about it? I sit and watch shows where fatties go off to the fatty farm and rid themselves of hundreds of pounds of flab by dieting and exercise alone. If they can do it, I can do it too, I yell - inside my head; the last thing I want is to be accountable to anyone reminding me of banal statements.
The other day I threw my head upwards at the stairs and set my face like flint against the daunting climb. Up-down-up-down, as my breath and heartbeat combined in a race against time. “Tomorrow I’ll do that three times,” I said to my teenager, in all seriousness. That day has long since passed, and it turns out … I lied. Now I truly know what that look on her face means.
All I really need is four willing friends to chop me off my computer chair, haul me on a stretcher to the nearest gym and drop me through the roof. Even then, I can’t believe that if Jesus told me to get up and walk He’d force me onto the dreaded Stairmaster®. Jesus is sweet and kind: in Sunday school they always told me that. Then again, in paintings, He only ever has the little lambs on His shoulders, not the belly bulging ewes. I think he made them walk up the hills and down again. Up-down-up-down. Those words are starting to give me nightmares.
I guess I’ll be staying as thick as a tree trunk for now, and yes, I'm sitting here in jeans two sizes too small. Living in denial isn’t such a terrible thing, as long as my sweater remains long enough to at least reach past my zipper… and I do go up and down the stairs regularly these days: once in the morning … and once again at night:)
Hmmm.
I thought I heard something just then. Must be my imagination.
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Wondering about the plural topic, trees, and the "forest" of those with rings that are growing wider and wider - ?!?
Liked this line: "All I really need is four willing friends to chop me off my computer chair, haul me on a stretcher to the nearest gym and drop me through the roof."
I am now motivated to only use the upstairs phone and the upstairs bathroom. Thanks.
Great story:)
Look forward to reading more!