The Covid 15. Or, to some, Quarantine 15. I don’t know about you, but this winter my body had a mind of its own and decided to pack a few on. I’m stressing about it, like most people who now carry around this latest gift from Covid. It’s such a thing right now, The New York Times published an article on how to not shame yourself for being a bit more…shall we say, rotund these days.
What does this have to do with dreaming you ask? Well, let me tell you about a dream I had two weeks ago.
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I’m standing in the kitchen, sunlight kicking over the horizon, pouring through the window, washing the counter in bright light. I’m standing over the countertop, looking down at my hands smearing butter on toast.
(Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so at this point in the dream, I’m pretty stoked about it. It makes my actual waking breakfast - second breakfast.)
There is a navy blue plate full of bacon next to the plate holding my splayed toast and butter knife. (By the way, it looked delicious and I felt hunger pangs in my sleep.)
Just as I was ready to grab the bacon and carry it to the table, another set of hands appeared over the countertop next to mine and started smearing butter all over my bacon. My line of sight was like through the lens of a camera. I could only see the countertop, my arms stretched over my plate, and someone else’s arms stretched over the bacon, but I couldn’t move or turn my head to see who the hell photo-bombed my breakfast dream.
I felt irritated. I tried to move my hands over to slap the other hands off my bacon, but my arms were frozen in mid-air while the other hands ruined my breakfast with sweet pads of yellow cream. I tried to yell at the hands, Stop already with the butter, you’re wrecking my bacon, but it was one of those dreams where you try to scream and no sound comes out. I hate those dreams.
Anyway, I digress…you know how the dream ended? One of those bastardly hands picked up a slice of bacon completely buried in butter and shoved it in my face.
I woke up. Pissed. Really pissed.
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I first became aware of the pressure to control my weight when I was 10 years old. A cousin and my brother used to “tease” me for being “fat". I look back at photos of me at that age, and I’m fully confused by the mocking. I was pudgy, very high round cheeks, and yes, my butt was full-grown by that point, but I wasn’t fat (that was my defense anyway).
I’m not the only one, as stated in the New York Times article.
Most of us feel pressure to achieve or maintain a certain body size because we’ve been taught that it’s important.
In my late twenties, I became obsessed with dropping some baggage and joined a gym. I worked out vigorously five days a week, two hours a day for ten years. You know what? It was awesome. I felt and looked great. Until I moved to Los Angeles and my music publisher and band manager told me I needed to lose twenty pounds if I was going to get a record deal.
So I lost twenty pounds and nearly starved in the process.
This new Quarantine 15, is really difficult for me to swallow, and I’m stressing about it. Christy Harrison, a nutrition therapist interviewed in the Times article, spoke truth when she stated,
“Fearing weight gain and feeling bad about your body takes you away from what really matters and being able to participate in this cultural moment.”
The good news is, I know how to get in shape. The bad news is, I don’t have 2 hours a day right now to do it. By mid-summer, that will change and so will the number on the scale.
My theory about the dream is, the other hands were attached to my anxiety. That part of my brain decided that grossing me out with butter was the best way to get my attention. It worked. I’ve been a little scant with butter on my toast ever since.
For the record, I haven’t actually eaten bacon since October, so I could also surmise the bacon in the dream was not actually pork. It was the Quarantine 15. ☆