"Do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool, Clarisse?"

I just finished all of the intake questionnaires for my life coach.

It was quite interesting, and as is usual for these things, it's a struggle for me somehow to be honest and forthright without trying to impress. I mean, I know I'm a compassionate person, and I'd like to list that as one of my strengths, but I also want people to THINK I'm compassionate, but not that I'm conceited about my compassion, or that I'm more compassionate than the next Tom, Dick or Harry. You know.

Mostly the themes of my life seem to be "I wanna be understood" and "I wanna understand myself."


And, of course, I wanna be rid of my weight issues - to leap over and leave behind a lifetime of struggle with being fat. I wanna be thin, damnit. I wanna be active and healthful and energetic and sporty and fun and normal.


I also wanna be the true Stevie, it's my mission in life, it's all I have - there's no kids, there's no great career accomplishment, all I have is being as completely Stevie as I can be, and like it or not, being Stevie has been about being fat, at least from the time I was 5 years old. It's like being gay for me, or being white, or being left-handed. It's the only thing on that list, of course, that I can change (hopefully). But it's been an innate part of me for 45 years. I acknowledge its undesirability. I wanna be through with it. And I know intellectually that my Stevieness is not in the fat, it's in the brain and heart and soul and inner thin body. But you know what I'm talking about: Santa Claus is not Santa because he's fat, but it's a part of his Santaness.

I truly believe that we exist in order to exist. I guess I'm an existentialist. I don't really think that we're here for a reason, a purpose. Granted, it's great if we accomplish something, if we touch a few hearts along the way, communicate an insight or express a point of view, maybe rescue someone from a burning building, love deeply and completely, cause an orgasm, crack somebody up, or procreate. But grass is grass in order to be grass. It exists in order to have the experience of being grass. What we see at the purpose of grass - to serve as food for buffalo, maybe, or to synthesize chlorophyll, or to vibrate at the frequency of green and undulate with its brothers and sisters in huge expanses, to inspire - is not the purpose. The purpose of grass is to be grass. I'm just delighted that I have touched people's lives along the way, and implemented filing systems, and expressed myself, and when I'm cremated one day the flames will warm the morgue technician's hands and my ashes will contain minerals that will enrich the dirt. But that's not really my purpose. I'm not soylent green. I'm a human, being. I'm being Stevie. Dust in the wind. My purpose is to be me.

Being fat has its innate value because it's an experience, like anything else - being fat, being tall, being blind, being poor, being sick, being brave, being powerful, being paraplegic, being stupid, being brilliant, being Julia.

I am prepared to give up / put away/ relinquish this aspect of my being - fat Stevie. I know there will be other components of Stevie that will be able to be expressed - tennis Stevie and oodles-of-energy Stevie and live-past-60 Stevie. And that's a very good thing.