Confessional; Seeking Forgiveness

I feel like I should be in the confessional at church asking my priest for some sin that I've committed.  My sin?  Gaining weight back, after working so hard ot lose it.

I had to try on pants yesterday because I'm working at the office for a couple of days and yoga/jeans are not acceptable.  None of them fit.  I could get none of them over my ass.  None. 

It makes me so frustrated to see that I had come so far and now I'm headed back in the wrong direction.  Call me Judgy McJudgerson, but when I used to read weight loss bloggers talk about a significant weight gain, I judged.  They fell off the food wagon and couldn't get back on.  I thought that I was immune to regaining my weight.  I have the gastric band, I have a good relationship with food and with the gym, I have a supportive husband. 

And I was so freaking proud of myself before surgery because although my gym going was sporadic, I had learned how to maintain my weight.  No I wasn't losing, but I also wasn't gaining. I thought I had such a good, reformed relationship with food and how to eat to maintain weight. 

And yet here I am, 6 months after this roller coaster of possible breast cancer and mastectomies and recovery and I am a good 15 pounds heavier than I was pre-surgery.  My body shape has changed, both because of my weight gain and my surgery.  None of my pants fit me, other than yoga pants.  I don't feel good about myself and my body and I don't fucking know how to make it all better.  I just want it all better.  I want my body and life that I had before it was all mashed up with biopsies and surgery and sitting around.

If I confess all my sins to you, can I get back to that place?  If I say 12 Hail Marys and study the food chart, will I be forgiven?  Can I forgive myself?  I'm frustrated and sad and I feel like I have no control over what is going on in my life!

And then it occurs to me that maybe that's why I'm eating.  Maybe my food relationship isn't all that great and I'm eating because I can't control the rest of my life.  But I can sure control that bag of Muddie Buddies Chex Mix going in my mouth.  Maybe that's the lesson in all of this.  I know putting that food in my mouth isn't making the control and emotions any better.  I know this.  It's not making the fact that I had both breasts removed and have fake boobs any better.  It's certainly not making my post surgical body image any better.  It's not making anything better.  Maybe that's the lesson in this.

I need to continue to accept that I am a disorganized eater with a broken relationship with food.  Instead of pushing the emotions away by trying to eat them, I need to recognize what I'm putting in my mouth at all times and why I'm eating it.  Instead of eating my life, I need to talk it out or write it out or exercise it out, hell even scream it out into nothingness.  But I can't continue to eat it.

Maybe there is a lesson in all of this.  Maybe I can ask for forgiveness.  But not from a priest, from myself.  I need to forgive myself and it's ok to do that.  My relationship with food will always be broken, but I have choices in how I deal with it.  Maybe the lesson is forgiveness and choices and learning to allow myself to have these periods and chose to get myself out of them.

So I bought pants.  And I hate them.  I absolutely fucking hate them with a passion.  They fit, they're nice pants, but I will always hate them because they are a size or 2 larger than what I was wearing before.