Summertime approaches.

For me, that means sleeping in tight black wifebeaters and long-legged pajama bottoms that I roll up past my knees in my sleep.

The last couple years, couch-surfing aside, I've been living in beach towns. This isn't purposeful- I don't "do" beaches. But something about the people, constantly out of doors, jogging, bodies vibrant, and the creativity that ocean winds seem to bring... I like it.

I've finally hit the goal I set for my body, however many years ago I fantasized about getting back to my nineteen year-old weight, pre-desk job, pre-medication that fucked with my metabolism so hard so quickly.

I look at myself in the mirror and it isn't enough.

I want to see leanness.

As lean as I can get with this bone structure. I'll never be my modelesque sister but, on the other hand, I have an ass and a rack.

My clothes are... no longer fitting. My pants hang off my hips, my favorite belt has run out of holes to use, so is of little use until I find another or punch an extra hole in it to use in the meantime.

Years ago, when my body started changing, I didn't realize it. I should have, but you see yourself every day in the mirror. You don't notice those extra pounds building. One of my friends mentioned that we have a body image so set in us of what we look like that our mind clings to it, even after the body has changed so much it's near unrecognizable.

I'm not sure if that's true.

When I finally realized that I would no long be able to fit into my clubbing clothes, my fun work clothes, I went to Target and bought some storage bins, loaded them up with an entire wardrobe and shoved them into my parents' attic, swearing I would fit into them again one day.

So many people do that. Save clothes they'll never be able to wear again. Buy clothes that don't fit and promise themselves that if they buy that dress or pair of pants, that'll be the motivation they need to lose the weight.

I'm not sure if that's true. I do know that very, very few of my friends have ever met the goals they've set for themselves.

It's a hard thing to do.

We have time we allot for certain things. It's such a limiting factor to what we accomplish, and the things that we spend time on are those that are important to us in some way, even if we don't enjoy the activity... otherwise we wouldn't be doing them so often. It might simply be habit, afraid of changing, unwilling to change.

Which is why, as I mentioned to Aldonza in an earlier comment, I don't ever think of myself as smarter than another person. I'm quick, yes. But there are so many different kinds of intelligence, intelligence formed on how we lived (and continue to live) our lives. IQ tests are rubbish, in my opinion. The idea, sure, is good. The math behind it is... odd. But what do you expect from a social science?

I like the idea that there are different kinds of intelligence. That everyone has something, no matter how odd or apparently useless, that they are a genius at. Because they learned how to be through exposure, through repetition. We teach our brain how to do these things, adapting and adjusting through experience.

So when a friend tells me they are going to lose weight, or build muscle, and then they don't, I don't think of them as lazy failures. They just didn't allot the time.

And, really, there are many other things out there do be doing with our time than obsessing about our appearance.

When I moved to this apartment, I got those boxes out from the attic. I figured I would be needing them soon. I spent an afternoon whooping with glee as I tried on clothing I forgot I had ever bought, outfits six years old that I could still wear and would still be fashionable because of how I dress. Almost everything fit, or was too large.

That was the beginning of January.

Now I'm stuck here at April. My clothes no longer fit. My favorite pair of ass-hugging jeans is loose. I don't have a pair of slacks to my name. No tight sweaters, no cute blouses, nothing.

And it's April.

I don't shop during spring and summer. I don't wear bright colors, and I certainly don't wear pastels. I refuse to wear light colored jeans. Floral prints? Christ, no.

I usually load up on "summer" clothes at the end of winter, when things are shifting into clearance. That wardrobe lasts me through the season, until "normal people" clothes come back into season at the end of summer.

It makes me feel like a dip. This whole post kinda makes me feel like a dip.

I have to valet when I get my hair done.

I broke two nails when I was out at June Lake a couple weekends ago, and I whined about it.

My fifteen year-old self would punch me in the face if she heard me whining about my nails, or handing over my keys to the parking attendant at the salon.

But here I am. Finally where I wanted to be with my body, finally able to get into the clothes I loved so much, and I'm enjoying it.

I did notice, looking back, once I lost that extra weight, how easy it was to slip into a sexless zone. Not that you're not having sex, but that you are not viewed with sexual desire. You become, essentially, without sex. Having no sexual impact on the people around you.

I often wonder if that's what it will be like when I hit my late thirties or mid-forties or whatever age it is when I stop being considered sexually desirable by the mass, whenever my body starts creating those cues that indicate to the rest of the world that I'm no longer the bright and bouncy girl that I was.

I enjoy things right now. Reading about physical desirability on the part of women and the accessibility that affords them for high status males, looking back over the months and watching my dating pool open to men I would have had a hard time accessing a few years ago. Wondering how far I'll be able to go with this body project, and what that will allow me to accomplish in the end.

And I'm exhausted. Tomorrow is a glorious day we like to call "Friday" and I plan on enjoying it.