Obsessed.

What I used to see.

"Dude, you're a big guy." A passer-by at the gym, a man whom I've never seen before.

Thanks, but you've got no idea what goes on in my head. My thoughts resonate into, "Thanks man." A reluctant response these days.

"Yea but when I was your age, I was like twice your size." His response.

...and there it is.

What you see is not what you get, not when it comes to how a person looks anyways. Quite honestly, this goes deeper, but I want to stay here for a moment. I want to stay on the surface, the cover of the book, what we see other people as.

I am reminded occasionally by my daughter, who appears to view her cousins, who happen to be identical twins, as two completely different people. The adults stammer about as these girls must cater to us when we get the name wrong, as though each day we have to be reintroduced. My daughter is given a gift to give to one, the adults cross their fingers as she starts walking towards the right one, hands the gift, and everyone sighs with relief. To her, they must not be just these outside presentations, but people, the inside, their being, which for these two girls are like day and night.

When kids see me, they rarely comment on size and instead might see someone funny, or the presentation in totality, beard, towering, and an overall stern-looking face. My daughter sees her father, just like I saw my father. I always thought it was funny when my dad and I would run into people who knew him as the high school football player or state wrestler he was and mention his physical strength and overall grit. It was like looking at him for the first time, through their eyes, what they saw.

How I see myself now. 

For me, my daughter's view of me hopefully is of safety and love, for she is not yet into the world enough to find value in her large dad, if she ever will be. She might not, for I do not want to promote the outside of her as her value, and instead value the inside, what she thinks, feels, her actions based on those internal processes. I want her to see the value she has, like we all do, inside.

If what we see in life was truly what we got, then all the people with millions of dollars, all the fabulous-looking bodies on Instagram, all the humorous memes about drinking and drugging, would all be true and therefore we would be a happy nation. The truth is, unhappiness is like a plague that interferes with our ability to be honest and continue to present what we think others want in exchange for their attention.

When you see me, see my frame, see a lean physique, maybe even see a lift or a run and think of me highly because of that, you are actually seeing the worst parts of me, my weaknesses. I am not my body or my physical performance. I am no longer the, "big guy" but rather something else, for that boy has grown. I enjoy the gym for its mental health support, how it keeps me balanced and regulated on eating. I enjoy feeling good and this is in no way denying these benefits. Where it becomes unhealthy for me is the reliance on the gym's attendance for my value, to chisel a body that inevitably declines with age. I am not that, but so much more.

Do not look to another's presentation and reflect on your own, for you have no clue what they are hiding back there.

This entire premise and my journey to this point is found HERE. Castle-Broken: When appearances are everything, regarding male body image disorders and what we can do about them.

God Bless.