Either Way I'm Celebrating

    I am pretty darn funny----at least that's what I've been told all of my life.    Some people---ok, MANY people describe me as being irreverent---maybe even blasphemous.  I swear I'm neither.  I just have a hard time not laughing out loud when all of the costumes and masks we all keep squeezing into---have "malfunctions"---and the disparities and incongruities and "real--ness" of our lives come roaring out.  As hard as all of us may try.....life is real.   There is not enough lip gloss or letters after our names or condos on Sea Island to smother what our souls long to LIVE out.
(That was a dog-gone long and winding topic sentence.)  I could have just said, "I say stuff that most people don't say---especially when a situation feels weird.  I sort of appoint myself as the "Truth Fairy".   It's not always a good thing.   I have never been good at denying  that the  emperor has  no clothes.   Which leads me to how I talk to my doctor.
So, last week I went to my family doctor  and  sat there and cried. 
Here is how the conversation went:
Me:  Dr. J., I just don't think it's fair that I'm fat......AND have a retarded son.
Dr:   What is it that you want out of life, Marianne?
Me:  I want to look great naked!!  I want to be thin like everybody else I know.
Dr:   Seriously, do you think being thin would make you have the life you want?
Me:  Absolutely.  I am 100% sure that this is all I need to make my life perfect.  Can't I just raise   
         Taylor AND look great naked??   Can't I have both?
Dr:    (Laughs....shifts his feet around....laughs.  Was that a "No" or was that an "Your eight minutes
          are up?")

     I wonder if you're reading this, what ONE thing it is that you might long for---or might have convinced yourself that if you had....that your life would be.....better/perfect/just right.   My guess is that we all have that one thing.   Mine just happens to be ......about weight.  And, I ask you, is it an illusion that there is something OUT THERE that will make life better?  (I already know the answer to this in my head.)   Why are we so lured into that belief that says:
"Life will be good when...or life would be good if.....".
 What a trap that catches us in---and I walk into that trap daily!

 Maybe that scene from the  movie  When Harry Met Sally  re-cemented this myth  when the older woman customer says to the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."  Somebody else appears to be having it better/easier/thinner/richer/smarter----so, yes, of course,  "I'll have what she's having. I assume that she must look great naked.  Her life, I bet, is perfect."  Myth.

Obvious segue:
Eckhart Tolle urges us to:
"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally."
So, as a student of life.....
Accepting Taylor for Taylor is an on-going journey.  I am doing my best.
And, I am working hard to change what I can so I can "Have What  I've assumed she's Having."
 But, if I can continue to laugh and live a  life in which " Wherever I am, I can be there totally"---
Even if I don't look great naked......
Either way, I'm celebrating.
I'll send pictures.