My life as a bougainvillea

Outside of my parents' house they have a Demon Plant. Well, that's what I call it. In real life, it's a bougainvillea. It looks pretty, sometimes, but that's only so that it can lure you close to it and KILL you. It has all these nasty thorns on it, and they are THICK. They will go through the bottom of your shoe and into your foot if you're not watching where you walk. I hate the fucking thing.

My parents and I have recently attacked ours. We got sick of walking near it and having it reach out and snag us. It may have had some death going on with pieces of it as well. We hacked it to death. There's about nothing left of it, and I couldn't be happier.

Here's the problem. We can cut it down and cut it back as much as we want, but there's a MASSIVE root system underground. After a hurricane, they tried to flush it out and dig it up, but to no avail. No matter what they do, they can't get the damn thing gone.

I realized the other day that there are some things in my life that are like that fucking bougainvillea. I was having dinner with a friend the other night and we were talking about the last woman he dated. I asked why he stopped seeing her, and at first he didn't want to tell me because it was superficial. I have no idea how he thought he was going to get away with that. I forced him into telling me and he said it was because she'd gained a few pounds. Not 2 or 3, but something closer to 20. (I think he probably has no idea how much she gained.)

I had an IMMEDIATE reaction to this. I stayed calm and inquired about the reason for the weight gain and we moved on with the conversation. But for a couple days after that, I struggled with my desire to chat with him. I started wondering why it is that he spends any time with me since I'm not some skinny little thing and then I thought, well shit, he canNOT possibly think I'm attractive. And while that may be true, I certainly don't want to have it thrust in my face.

After I stepped away from it for a minute and thought about it. It's not my place to find fault with what someone else finds attractive. He may not like chunkier women, but I don't tend to find super skinny men attractive. And the reality is that all of that can fall by the wayside when you actually get to know someone. They become more attractive when you get to know and like their personalities.

If he'd said he stopped dating her because she was too short, I probably wouldn't have had any reaction to it at all because that's NEVER been an issue for me. But because weight's a trigger for me, it stings when someone calls it out.

I've come really far with accepting my body image and acknowledging that I'm more than just my weight. But no matter how far I've come with it, the little things just pop into my head. Sometimes I can hear my mom saying, "You'll never get an attractive man to marry you unless you lose weight," and I completely regress.

One day, I will figure out how to dig out those nasty little ideas. I will get to the root system and completely eradicate it. Until then, I'll just chop the hell out of the bougainvillea out front.