Our apartment has the the most fortunate view ever. Straight out we see the city skyline, straight up 79th street, and New York's east river. Looking straight down, we have our building's pool, and all that eye-candy sunbathing delight. You see, our building is fully young, good-looking buff people. They spend the summer weekends out along the pool deck or throwing footballs shirtless in the courtyard.
And every weekend I wish I could be one of those people ... and not be the freakish fat guy who really shouldn't be sunbathing. You know the type. It's me.
My partner loves to be out in the sun. He loves to sunbathe in Central Park, and he loves to swim. Every year he gets a new swimsuit. He'd love to spend time at the beach. And I'd love to go with him.
In reality, the things that really keeps my shirt on in public, in addition to the enormous sunblocking gut, are my stretch marks. I managed to gain weight too fast (and probably not hydrated enough) for my skin to keep up and I now have long, deep stretch marks. Since I started hydrating consistently, they've actually started to fade, but they're there and so is my gut. Both rob me of the self-confidence to do anything but sit in a lawn chair (fully clothed) and read. But I want to sunbathe, and swim, and go to the beach and lay out, and run around in the ocean, and throw a ball around or play Frisbee in just my swim trunks.
This goal is really about self-confidence. And I may reach that point even before being thin and pretty like the boys below. We'll see. But this is goal #2.
Updated March 21, 2008
