Curves and poo

Actual day 2 (I don't know why I thought yesterday - day 1 of my awesome journey! - was day 2). Today was much less eventful than yesterday. The coolest thing I saw was a sign that said this in a women's rest room:

It was at an American Legion Hall in Fredericksburg, VA. where I attended an open AA meeting. It felt like the perfect thing for me to see since I was there as an OA and not an AA. Interestingly, there were folks there with decades in AA who had never heard of OA or compulsive overeating! But I digress...

One of the reasons this quote was so important to me is that I just started taking belly dance classes which has been messing with my head in terms of my body image. I'm down over 100 pounds from my top weight and feel AMAZING! I don't typically have body image issues because I see my extra skin and flab as badges of honor. In fact, when one friend asked if I was going to have surgery to get the extra skin on my arms removed I said, "Are you kidding?! I grew that shit!" But in belly dance class, we're all always facing the mirror and it's impossible not to see how I look in comparison to the others in class. Though my size may be the same as theirs, the composition of my body is very different. And I was starting to think, "I'm not sure this class is going to do well for my brain because it's almost impossible to not compare myself to them!" But one thing I always have on in that class is a SMILE because it's so fun and so "out of my comfort zone" :-) So I will focus on that curve and not the others!!

Yesterday I contemplated talking about poo in my blog and thought better of it, but I've changed my mind! I'm going to talk about it! (Liz H. says that almost every time we get together the subject turns to poo...so this is for you Liz!). The reason I almost mentioned it yesterday is that I had an exchange with a sponsee a few weeks ago. I was telling him that my recovery has worked its way into the cracks and crevices of my life in ways I could never have imagined. The example that came to my mind when we were talking was that I had just recently, for the first time ever, not felt shame when going to a public restroom to poo. Even though everybody does it (and sometimes it stinks!) Before recovery, I'd try to wait until no one was in the bathroom, or go to a single stall bathroom, or I'd just feel this profound sense of  shame for being a human who eliminates their waste. But recovery has changed me profoundly. I poo. Every day. And sometimes in stinks.

So the exchange yesterday with my sponsee was "Good thing I got over my shame of going poo in public rest rooms!! I'm going to be doing that a lot on this trip!!" If I had talked about that in the blog yesterday, I could have called my blog post "The moon, a zoo and some poo" which would have been hilarious! But I just couldn't do it. So here I am, doing it.