I’ll bet Boticelli’s babes never wrecked his furniture

I had one of those “the universe is speaking to me” revelations this past week. It began with a flop on the couch one evening as Nathan and I were preparing to play a game on the Wii. My knees being bad, I more or less descended into the seat with all my weight and flopped down onto it. I heard a sickening “CRACK!” as my butt hit the cushion and I immediately sank several inches. Nathan looked at me in horror. “No. No way,” he said. We immediately turned the couch over and were treated to the sight of one of the wooden supporting beams poking through the gauzy fabric covering the bottom.

Now these are not just any couches. These are the relatively new, beautiful, blue Broyhill couches we bought less than a year and a half ago. These are the “grownup” couches we purchased from a quality furniture store (i.e. a store that does not also sell groceries) and fully paid for as of this past March. These are the couches that were supposed to last us until we saw grandchildren and in one fell flop my ass destroyed that future.

It was humiliating. Nathan has seen me at my worst, but this has got to be up there with one of the most embarrassing things I’ve done in his presence. We wound up stuffing the damaged side of the couch with a pillow to reduce the sag and ultimately switched the damaged couch out with the other identical Broyhill that wasn’t sitting directly across from the TV.  I guess now only unsuspecting guests will have to sit on my Cushion of Shame.

I don’t write much about my weight here. If I do, it’s usually referred to in passing or as a punchline to a self-deprecating joke. That’s not to say I don’t take it seriously, but I’ve come to realize I don’t take it seriously enough. The universe was loud and clear on that point.

If the couch incident wasn’t enough, I had a Very Bad Mother moment later on in the week that probably would not have happened if I had been in better physical shape. I didn’t have the patience, the energy or the physical capability to handle my daughter’s willfulness and tried using psychology to gain her obedience. My method failed miserably and I was left feeling like a complete piece of shit.

I’ve been planning on returning to Weight Watchers for a few weeks but wanted to put it off until my summer class was finished. Of course I didn’t return immediately after class was over because we had two anniversary dinners with my parents, ours and theirs, and I wanted to be free to eat what I wanted.

This past weekend I finally started listening to the universe’s cues and got back to Weight Watchers. Not only did I weigh in, but I stayed for the meeting. I haven’t done that in a long time and it was nice. Lately I’ve been feeling a little out-of-touch with the outside world, a little disconnected from humanity if you will. With the exception of the Shakespeare class, I’ve spent a lot of my time inside and online interacting with folks I know only through their blogs or Facebook profiles. I really needed to interact with a group of fleshy folks (pun intended).

Apart from being treated to the sight of my highest weight ever, the decision to go back was a good one. It was either return to Weight Watchers or consider bariatric surgery, an option that still scares me more than anything. With my knee issues, I don’t doubt I’d be a good candidate for it, but I’ve already been under the knife once this year, thank you.

And just so it was sure I had listened, the universe gave me one more surprise this weekend in the form of a pair of split pants. My khaki capris, the nicest pair of summer pants I own, split in the front panel right next to the zipper.

I’m listening, universe. I’m listening.