Sags, Bags and The Humility Pimple

Saturday 1-28-12
Why even skinny people can sometimes look bad...

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was accepted to an extended unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at my city's teaching hospital.  Doing this class, and the clinical hours and on-call requirements that it entails, have been glorious, exhausting, intense and humbling.  And I am just getting my feet wet, really.

Last Sunday night I was on-call at the hospital.  My job schedule limits the way I have to schedule my on-call nights, which I can only do on Sunday night going into Monday morning.  Normally on Sunday I have clinical hours starting at 1 pm, and the on-call period starts at 4:30 pm and lasts until 8:30 the following morning.  The chaplain on call the night before conducts the morning chapel service and then presents the morning report.  Because of the way my clinical hours are set up, when I am on-call, I will actually be at the hospital from 1 pm on Sunday afternoon until my seminar is over at 5 pm on Monday afternoon.  Then there is music practice after that.  So now my Marathon Mondays are much more marathon-ish.  And yes, it was exhausting, but a wonderful experience.  I will be doing this twice a month until the unit is over in late May. 

I slept for about one hour during my time at the hospital because we had several traumas come in during the night and my pager kept going off.  The morning after my night on call, I was able to get a quick shower without being paged, thank God.  But looking at myself in the mirror as I attempted to put on my makeup and start another day, I could see every minute of the night before showing up on my face and my body. 

I had walked my feet off rounding the hospital and hurrying to the trauma bay numerous times overnight, as well as to various patient rooms for visits when called, so my posture was definitely sagging.  Although I know that the exercise is good for me, there had been an overabundance of activity that night.  I had rubbed a blister on one of my heels and felt like I had shin splints.  And the bags under my eyes were the size of steamer trunks.  Sometimes even the most skillful application of concealer just won't cover what I want covered, and the bags were definitely making their presence known in a most visible way.

Then I noticed it, as big as life and twice as ugly, staring smugly at me from the side of my chin like a school bully who has just made me run squawling to my Mama.  The Humility Pimple.  You know the one...the one that shows up at the most inopportune moments.  Like prom.  Or the reunion you want to look so polished and put-together for.  Or the wedding/funeral/family holiday/first date that you've anticipated, planned and prepared for.  It's The Zit that seems to laugh at you and say, "Oh, how I have missed you!  I know you must be thrilled to see me, too.  So glad I could make it for your big event!  Wouldn't want to feel too good about ourselves, now would we?"

Yeah...not so much.

I am realizing more all the time that losing weight is only going to address some of my self-image issues.  There will still be things that, frankly, will just make me look crappy sometimes...things like exhaustion, hormones, stress and The Humility Pimple.  Even skinny people probably struggle with something, at some point or other, regarding their appearances.  And once I am thinner and healthier, there will still be things I can't control about what I see in the mirror.  My hope in this process is that I will be able to appreciate my improved health and energy, and to be grateful for feeling better, even (or especially) on days when I have sags, bags, or even The Humility Pimple.