Forecast: mostly sunny

Non-secret: I love challenges. I'm a list-maker, so I like having a list of goals to check off. The problem, though, is that the challenges I participate in tend to be "challenges" in a loose sense - they feel more like to-do lists than things I have to really push myself outside of my comfort zone for. There's one challenge out there now that would be a true challenge: Ellen's Hate-Loss Challenge. A lot of people are participating, and seeing their posts so far has been really inspiring. And yet I can't bring myself to commit to the challenge ... because this would truly be a challenge, in the difficult-to-impossible sense.

I'm a totally capable lady, I really am. I can lose 91 pounds in 23 weeks. I can run 3.1 miles in 38 minutes and 11 seconds. But I can't look in the mirror and say "Mary, you're beautiful" without feeling like it isn't entirely true. And my inability to feel honest while saying that little sentence seems to diminish all the other successes.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not walking around in a constant state of self-loathing and depression. Some days I catch a glimpse in the mirror and think I look good, but there are always conditions. I look nice in this shirt - but underneath, my stomach is an absolute mess from years of morbid obesity. My hair looks nice - but over here, look how jiggly my arms still are!

It's a reaction I've had for years, something that was instilled in me as a child by my mother. Whenever I would look in a mirror for longer than a second or say something about thinking I looked good, she would add a condition, or tell me something different that needed improvement - and not always physical. I have a vivid memory of being about twelve or thirteen and being pretty excited about finally getting breasts and hopefully starting to look like a real person instead of a chubby little egg with legs, and my mother telling me to quit parading around in front of the mirror "like some little sexpot" because I still had "a lot of growing up to do." I don't think she consciously wanted to be cruel, just realistic - it was the way her own mother had been to her as well. The effect has been strong and near impossible to overcome, likely for both mother and daughter. Even when I like what I see in the mirror, I don't like one hundred percent of it - there's always another flaw, something to fix.

My sister gave me a lovely Nalgene bottle for Christmas that says "life is good" on it. There's a sun, and underneath it says "Forecast: Mostly Sunny." That's the outlook I aspire to - that life is good, always, even when there are clouds in the sky. I want to be able to look in the mirror and notice only positives, even if negatives exist. Even if I'm not at my goal weight yet and even if I'm having a bad hair day and even if the skin on my stomach is loose, I want to love myself. I am more than a number on the scale, and I am more than a reflection in the mirror. I want to love myself even when my eyes are closed.

I think this is especially important as I consider trying to enter the world of dating and relationships. There's a lot of residual heartache from Scott, who was the first person ever to compliment my body - even at 345 pounds, he told me I was attractive, and he desired me even when I could hardly stand to look at myself in the mirror. It's inauthentic, I know - this isn't love or caring, this is a thirty-something year old married man who will say what he thinks I want to hear in order to get me to do what he wants. The problem is that for a long time, it worked, and so most of my experiences with men have been based on similar deceptions, and now every time a guy tells me that he thinks I am beautiful, I question his motives. Not that it happens terribly frequently, but still, I simply cannot fathom the idea of that being someone's honest belief. Are this guy's feelings real, or does he just want something from me?

I have to love myself before anyone else can love me - it's cliché, I know, but just because it's cliché doesn't mean it isn't true. With self-love will come the ability to truly open my heart to others ... and the faith that someone out there is capable of being sincere when he tells me that I'm beautiful.