We successfully did the lift, he put me down, and gave me a very tiredly puzzled face.

“You are lighter.”
“Yes?”
“Lighter?”
“About 12kg lighter than when we started, yes.”
Frown, tired, steps back, looks me up and down.
“Actually you look really good! And I can feel that you’re lighter. Huh.”

Honestly I just wanted to give the guy a hug, he looked so utterly shattered.

For the first time in ages, I didn’t come home with sore feet. I found some cheap, but nice, lyrical teaching sandals and oh MAN they are the most comfortable dance shoe I have EVER had on my feet. They are like heaven and I will be buying more at some point.

I also scored a red bra for twenty bucks on special. In my size. This is like finding actual powdered hens teeth. When paired with the racktastic red dress, I look amazing; Tobermory has threatened to tattoo “PROPERTY OF {NAME}” on my arse, just in case anyone gets ideas.

Congress is three weeks away. I am so excited.

I’m going to the dance congress in five weeks. The theme of the party Saturday night is “paint the town red”. Clearly, the only appropriate outfit is a red dress. So I hopped on the internet and found one second hand, that being one of my minor superpowers.

It cost me forty bucks.

It’s the first dress I’ve owned in years from a straight size shop. A shop that doesn’t aim itself at fat chicks, but at anyone who wanders in off the high street. It fits like a charm. It is, admittedly, utterly racktastic, but seeing as I have a g cup, that’s not entirely surprising.

I love it.

I’ve been steadily losing about half a kilo a week, one kg some weeks.

This week I dropped 1.5kg.

WTF.

I can now remove one of those pairs without the previous ceremony of undoing them. Upon getting on the scales, the reason why is clear – I’m 10kg down.

I’m kind of pleased with that.

Yesterday had some ups and downs. Inexplicably woke up around 7, which is Too Early For Sunday. Then my laptop – faithful 2008-era macbook – died.

But, husband sourced me a replacement (techy friends are the best), I swapped out the hard drive for it’s original drive and will sell the carcass for parts, the drive is available for data restores onto my new to me machine.

Then the Zouk team from last year had a performance scheduled. We haven’t danced the routine together since Christmas. Unsurprisingly, rehearsal was less ‘rehearsal’ and more ‘oh crap no-one remembers the choreo’. Still, we rocked it, and there are some fabulous photos turning up on Facebook.

Then I went to the regular social Sunday dance. And realised that one of my regular touchpoints for “how’s my mental health” is “how willing am I to ask strange men to dance”. Brains, huh.

I got home around 11:30, exhausted, sweaty, and blissfully happy with my place in the world.

I’m not one for Internet rhetoric. But the ideas behind “health at every size” resonated with me. After all, I was fat, but I maintained reasonable-ish fitness and strength. I was always able to do what needed to be done – carry heavy loads, move equipment at work, clean and move furniture at home. I could walk wherever I needed to. I was healthy, and I had to accept myself as I was before I had the correct motivation to change.

I know that sounds counter intuitive. After all, if you’re trying to change yourself, you don’t actually like yourself as you are, right?

Prior to this, my attempts at weight loss failed. They failed because I was doing it for the wrong reasons, other people’s reasons. “I’m too fat!” “I’m ugly!” All the usual image-based horseshit. I’d lose a bit of weight, and promptly think “I hope other people are pleased with me”. Not “I’m pleased with me”, but other people.

Then I’d dive head first into a tub of icecream and attempt to feel better about myself that way. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

Six years of wavering around later, I finally got into a headspace where I liked myself enough to accept myself as is. Having done so, I can now work to actually change what I am – because I WANT TO. Not because of what other people think of me, but because I want to.

I’m not saying my motivations are wholly internal. I am a dancer, and I want to be a better dancer – and realistically that involves having a smaller body. But I’m OK with that. It’s not “my dance partners want me to be thinner”, it’s “I want to be smaller for dancing”. The distinction is … small, perhaps, but important.

Both the scales and my trousers confirm that I’ve lost an entire dress size. I’ve gone down a bra size. And when I was getting dressed this morning, I realised I’ve lost a little wobbly bit at the back of my arm that had been irking me. Then I did a quick recce into KMart last night, to pick up a pair of harem pants for a performance this weekend; picked up my usual pants size, and realised upon a try-on that if the elastic falls right off your hips, you should go down a size.

When I look in the mirror, I have discernible stomach areas. I find that incredibly entertaining, because it’s actually the fat layer setting itself up in a mockery of a sixpack.

I’ve lost eight kilograms since the end of November. I’m quite proud of that.

Vacuuming goes as follows:
- vacuum a couple square metres of carpet with the Vax.
- pop foot/pole off hose, use end of hose to remove my hair and cat fur that’s jamming up the vacuum foot
- use end of hose to do edges/skirting boards
- vacuum another couple square metres of carpet
- pop foot/pole off hose, marvel at size of current hairknotball acquisition
Lather, rinse repeat.

For bonus points, follow up Vax vacuum as above with a few circuits with the Dyson, and marvel further at the astonishing amounts that the Dyson can extract from the carpet even AFTER you swear that the Vax has thoroughly beaten all the dirt out. Hint: you’re wrong.

We’ve been partnered up with our permanent partners for the routine – and I’ve been partnered with the male instructor again. Unlike the last time, when it was basically a sympathy partnering based on my partner dropping out, I think this is a real choice based on body types and so on. The female instructor is tall and lanky (and gorgeous!) and is paired up with the tallest guy, who is SUPER lanky – they look really good together. The male instructor is, somewhat unusually for a dancer, built like a tank. Not fat, not by anyone’s mileage, but sturdy. Height wise and proportions wise, we look decent together – when I’m dancing with some of the slimmer lads, I do look wider by comparison.

Anyway, tricks. Although I’ve lost a fair amount of weight – five kg since November, which is an interesting trick given that I haven’t really been trying that hard – I’m still aware that I’m no lightweight, and lifting me isn’t necessarily an easy task. Even after the AWESOME freestyle lift last weekend. I was entirely prepared to be doing an alternative trick or… something. And I’d made it clear when I signed up that I was willing to drop out if the routine couldn’t allow for that.

But no – we went through the trick a couple of times. I need to practice the jump that gets us into the lift – as do several of the other girls – but S’s entirely happy to do this trick with me. I made it very clear that I did not mind if he said no, and (direct quote) “I’m built like a truck, I can lift you no problem, really, we are doing this trick.”

I couldn’t say thank you enough.

I am so happy being part of this studio – they try so hard to accommodate anyone who’s willing to work for what they want. And I am so willing to work hard for this, and my two years of learning and working is paying off.

I swear, I nearly cried right there in the studio.

Thursday, teaching then dancing at the bar, was fun as ever, and I stayed until kicking out o’clock.

Then last night, went to another party, and caught up with a guy I’ve done several workshops with but not danced with much outside that. In our second dance of the night, he LIFTED ME. And it was awesome!! A simple lift, but dude. People don’t do lifts much socially to start with and they certainly don’t get my fat arse off the earth voluntarily, but this dude lifted me, properly, dropped me slowly straight into a deep cambre and oh my god it was AWESOME.

Dancing is like coming home every time I step onto the floor. I love this.

A friend who’s handy was kind enough to investigate why the light fixture in our bedroom had died – it turned out to be the dimmer switch. No problem, we didn’t really use it anyway. Now we can fold laundry at night!

I went through my wardrobe again and generated another sackful of clothing I don’t need/don’t wear any more. Then went shopping to replace the things I actually NEEDED – work pants, work-suitable tshirts, shoes. Three hundred bucks later, I had three pairs of pants, a skirt, four shirts, and three pairs of shoes. Great success.

On a related note – why are the racks in the plus size section of Farmers closer together than they are in the rest of the store? This seems somewhat counter intuitive.

I’ve danced a lot less in the last couple of months. No particular reason – enforced break at Christmas, no classes I really felt like taking, my favourite teachers are still overseas, trying to be more sensible with cash… all of the above.

I’ve realised in the last week or two that I really NEED that time. As much as I’m an introvert, I need the people time. I need the energy, I need the exercise, I need the motivation and exhilaration I get from the challenge of dancing. I’m still teaching at the bar on Thursdays, which is good for me, but I need more than one night out.

So I’ve joined another performance course. Intermediate level this time; performing in Congress in Wellington in June. For which I won free accommodation, which is a nice boost to the budget.

Two and a half years I’ve been dancing. Who’d've thought I’d come this far?

We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. It isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems – the ones that make you truly who you are – that you’re ready to find a life-long mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person – someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”
- From Daily Afflictions, by Andrew Boyd

Tobermory and I don’t do Valentine’s Day. Neither of us are fond of commercialised rituals. But I like this quote, and it’s an appropriate day to trot it out.

After all, Tobes is a problem I love having.