Comic: Elastics

Excuses

Excuses I have made to avoid taking steps to lose weight:

• I feel okay.
• I've never had high cholesterol.
• BMI's not real, anyway - I'm 4'11", but I haven't weighed 100 pounds since before puberty.
• Those clothes are old anyway.
• I still look fine in black. I'll just buy all black.
• I don't need to be taking pictures of myself anyway. I should be taking pictures of the world around me!
• It's cold out and there's a bus coming.
• It's cold out and Uber will only cost $7.
• It's cold out and I'm afraid I'll slip on the ice.
• It's cold out and my body needs more carbs to stay warm.
• It's cold out and hot chocolate.
• I should eat all this food I have before buying new food, you know, to save money.
• I could go to yoga after class but then I'd have to carry everything around.
• I could go to yoga in the middle of my prep day but then I'd throw off my grading groove.
• I could go to yoga in the middle of my living room floor but I can't find my mat.
• I could just doing jumping jacks in the middle of the floor right now but I've already showered.
• That gym is too expensive.
• The food for that recipe is too expensive.
• My partners love my body, even if I don't.
• I feel okay.

• I feel okay.

Full Health

For the past six years, I've been playing the real-life RPG called "Poly Adventures." I was pretty good at it too, until last year. I started coming upon harder levels and meaner monsters. I found my weapons cache to be sorely empty, and my emotional health bar always empty or nearing empty. I had a lot of people trying to help me play through those levels, but for a while, nothing seemed to work. I never lost any lives, and I never thought I'd stop playing, but there were times in there that I didn't see how my health could ever get back to full. I lost interest in activities and almost lost friends.

But like many games, it takes time and practice to get through those hard levels and onto better ones. I started finding things that gave me more health, like therapy, medicine, and activities I enjoyed. I especially found art, which I had dabbled with for a long time but never really put the time or effort into getting better. Suddenly, I became enthusiastic to better myself at something, and the health just kept coming back. The better I felt about my own emotional health, the more I felt I could tackle the challenges I had with friends, and everything started to fall into place. 

Yesterday, as I sat around the living room with two of my closest friends, I realized this was the most fun and easy level I'd played in a long time. The hard levels I'd played over the course of last year, though still remembered, were not affecting my ability to play through this one. In fact, I probably have become better at the game as time has gone on. I'm even ready to meet new romantic allies to play new levels with, and know that I wouldn't have been able to do so without that expert-level experience. 

I'm not actually that good at video games, but this one is thankfully not the kind you need to learn how to beat. You just need to learn how to keep at it, even though the tough levels. Because it's a pretty fun game, and I'd like to keep playing it for years to come.

A million, billion thanks to Make 8-Bit Art! It's super fun and everyone should check it out.