A Boston Marriage

It’s that time of year when oh-so-many of us sit down to draft a list of life-changes we are pledging to make during the new year. It’s a an understandable ritual: gorged on regret after the excesses of the holidays and fueled by vigor inspired by the impending changing of the annum, we are ready to pledge to be better, wiser, and slimmer.

Ah yes, slimmer. As a woman in this day and age, is it near impossible for me to think of New Year’s resolutions without thinking of the seemingly age-old pledge to lose weight. After all, the Women’s Network airs a full week of “diet-friendly programming” to kick start the new year, gyms’ have enticing new-membership deals, and all the women’s magazines’ covers are promising a new you—if you can just shed a wee bit.  While of course it’s admirable to want to lead an active lifestyle and many of us could stand to drop a few kilos, are such healthy desires really at the heart of the resolution matter? Or is it a belief that this year, if we’re just a little more taut, everything will finally fall into place?

Under this pressure, the best a woman can do is don a blasé attitude and smirk when asked if paring down is on the list of promises-to-self, hoping your scornful gaze will be read as an emphatic “no” rather than understood as guilty avoidance of the question.  In fact, I am so eager to avoid appearing to have a New Year’s weight-loss resolution that, upon moving back to Moncton a few weeks ago, I rushed to join a gym right away. I was desperate to avoid being mistaken as one of those New Year’s joiners that are so disparaged by the regulars who grumble as they wait for the resolution-congestion of their gym to abate as new members’ resolve fails. No ma’am, weight loss is not on my list, really and truly—my timing was just… coincidental.

That might be the worst part of the New Year’s weight-loss resolution—we’re fixated on it, but reluctant to admit it. We desperately want to improve ourselves, but are loathe to admit that we feel we need improving. During the holidays, I sat with a group of women and asked them to share their resolutions with me for research purposes. Grumbles, mumbles, declarations of not having any—until one woman, in a moment of brazen frustration, spoke up and said her aim was to be skinny. The other women seem half-relieved, half-angry that she’d copped to it—after all, we were a group of empowered twenty-somethings, we’re not supposed to care about these things. I liked it for her word choice; she didn’t aim to be healthier or lose some weight, but to be skinny—an intentionally biting, deprecating  goal-description. I think that’s the needed moxy and balance—embracing the conflict and admitting you aim to drop weight, but you’re pissed you want to.

That’s what I think the unease is really over, the conflict in the messages we all receive. Be confident—but relentlessly self-improve. You shouldn’t care about fitting into a mould—but it’s going to be crushingly painful if you don’t. And the most painful of these contradictions is that we know they’re insane, but they’ve been bred into us and our devotion to them is as unshakeable as our certainty that they’re wrong.

The best we can do is admit the insanity and proceed with dignity—whether that means joining a gym a month early or scorning the mere suggestion of the weight-loss-resolution while adhering to it. As always, irreverence is a good way to seize control of the situation: a friend of mine, a real stunner who easily sits at a healthy weight, tells me that her New Year’s resolution is to gain five pounds. She explains that this way, if she gains weight, she’s meeting her goal, and if she stays at or loses from her current weight, she’s exceeded expectations. It’s the best weight-related resolution I’ve ever stolen.

Originally published last New Year’s  in [here]. Again with the recycling, but I stand firm on this one.