What was supposed to be here

"You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it."  -Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo  (affiliate link)

I had to keep repeating that to myself when I booked the Mr's anniversary present in Hawaii, an outrigger canoe ride.  I contacted an outdoor sports company, told them our story and asked what we could do at our weights.  He said stand up paddle or outrigger canoe.  Well the Mr has done SUP but I hadn't and my first time was NOT going to be on the ocean regardless of how "calm" it was.  I almost drown in California as a teen and I need to work my way up to being more comfortable in the ocean.  So I chose the outrigger canoe, something I've always wanted to do and I know the Mr did too.  Then I saw a picture of it:

Um yeah, the skinny girls barely have a few inches hip wise, I can't imagine MY big butt!  So I emailed the guy and asked how wide the seat was and he said 19".  Can you guess the next thing I did?  Yep, I measured my ass.  I sat on the carpet in the office and marked the widest part of my hips in a pair of capris.  22"  Great.  Then I went down to the cold, cement basement floor and put on a pair of "sucker pants" (compression shorts that were seriously tight) and remeasured.  19"  So I was determined to keep it secret and then I confirmed the reservation with the guy and he said we would get out of the canoe and snorkel.  I froze in terror.  Scuzi?  My immediate thought was getting my lard ass back onto the canoe without tipping it.  I said "uh I don't see me being able to lift myself up into the canoe from the middle of the water!"  He said they could bring a ladder to help with that.  "Um okay but I'm still going to tip this f**ker" is what I wanted to say.  Of course he called the second the Mr got home so I had to have him go outside while I talked to him.  When I got off the phone I motioned him back in and sat on the couch.  My eyes filled with tears and I just lost it.  I began crying uncontrollably.  He became concerned and was trying to guess what could have me so filled with terror and he was getting nervous.  He finally guessed to some degree but I think he thought the boat I was talking about was bigger and was like no biggie.  He said "unless it's a canoe or something."  I lost it and shook my head yes.  He said that was awesome, loved it and was now a little nervous about it.  So there we sat, him somewhat excited and nervous and me bawling like someone just told me I had a terminal disease.  I figured worst case scenario is I wouldn't get out of the boat to snorkel.  I spent the next 4 weeks in complete and utter terror but I was doing it for the Mr because I knew he'd love it.  He gave me a billion outs and said he would understand.  I couldn't do that to him especially now that he knew.  I was just going to have to gonad up and do it.

That's what I had written before we left for our vacation.



The worst case scenario didn't happen because that wasn't the real worst case scenario...we didn't do it.  Just before we left, I cut my thumb deep enough that a stitch or two could've been required but there wasn't enough skin to stitch it.  Yeah.  The paddle would've hit right where the cut was but that wasn't completely prohibitive.  I could've bulked up the bandages on the wound.  Then right before we left, the Mr injured his hand and he said he wasn't sure he could see being out there for 3 hours but it might be okay by then.  We had a 3 day window to cancel.  In the time we got there to the 3 day window, we saw no less than 50 outrigger canoes.  On the side of the road, in parks, on trucks, outside our window, I mean EVERYWHERE.  What became very obvious was my butt literally was not going to fit.  I was terrified.  I mentioned it to the Mr I was worried and he said to cancel it because he wasn't overly jazzed about it.  An outrigger canoe wasn't at the top of his to do list but he didn't want to disappoint me and he was now worried about how he would do in it too.  I sent the guy an email and cancelled and he was fine with it.  We were relieved too because honestly we had way too much crammed into that day including a visit with a friend that I don't know how we would've done if we did the canoe before.

But it did really affect both of our self esteems because this was supposed to be a reward for all of our hard work and instead it felt like same crap different trip.  We were still too fat to do something awesome.  It triggered a lot of old feelings in us and we dealt with them by keeping Snickers Dark in the black.  Way to regress eh?  So between the treatment in coach and the canoe thing, our confidence was at an all time low.  It was frightening how quickly we could revert back to feeding those emotions but when you use the excuse that you're on vacation, it's very easy to do.  We never would've done that in "real life" but I think we were just so caught off guard because we pictured this trip being much different than any other since we're at the thinnest we've ever been going to Hawaii.  (Not by TOO much but about 40 pounds or so)  I think finding out that we couldn't parasail this time as well (before we left) was kind of the beginning of feeling like "oh, so this really isn't different, we're still too fat for prime time."  We were both very sure that the weight limits were well within our limits when we checked 6 months ago but were suddenly different when we checked a month before we left.  It felt like we were being punished for the lack of perceived progress over the past year.  The body shape might be changing but body shape isn't a requirement for a zipline or flying parachute in the water, weight limits are and we were quickly reminded of that.  All of the things we still couldn't do were being thrown in our faces and we got a bit resentful.  It didn't keep us holed up in the house or anything but it  told us that if we ever want things to be different we're going to have to figure something out that we're obviously not doing.  That's what we're doing now.  I am praying that this time next year is completely different because I've got stand up paddling on the Hanalei River I would like to do.

Have you ever had a mental setback after realizing you weren't able to do something you thought you were fit enough/within the weight limits to do?

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