Image versus Reality

Okay, I don’t need some skeletal entertainment show host to dress in a “fat suit” and walk around to know this: People judge who you are and what makes you tick by the appearance of your weight. I know because I’ve been a thin person for most of my life, and an overweight person for the most recent years of my life. Throughout that entire time, though, I’ve been the same personality.

And yet, the world does not seem to get that.

Take this tennis pro the other day, for instance. Now, this is not my usual tennis pro who works with me to train for matches (okay, time out. It is kind of obnoxious that I even said that “my tennis pro,” because I’m a working Mom, darn it. That’s just plain crazy. But you know what? It makes me happy, and it’s a heck of a lot safer than crack cocaine and some days you just need something that powerful. But I digress).

So Monday I was working with three other spoiled women who I happen to like quite a bit and this pro I have not really taken a shining to. He’s young. He doesn’t know me well. And he told me last year he could tell by looking at me I was missing something. “You don’t have competitive drive.”

Excuse me? Okay, so, I worked for 11 years as a nationally award-winning crime reporter. You want competitive? Try to be the first one to get a murder victims wife/mother/lover/attacker to talk, and then get them to not talk to anyone else. I did that and did it well. You want cut-throat? Try holding onto a top job at one of the best magazines in the world; a job that – I kid you not --- thousands are lined up behind me wishing to have. You want thirst for a win? Try being a competitive freestyle skier. This guy saw none of that in me, base purely on seeing what I look like.

But I have this problem with tennis: I love to win but, at the end of the day, it’s all good. For goodness sakes, it’s the middle of the week and I’m working with my tennis pro. There are women working at chambermaids at the same time. I’m thinking if I lose a match, we are all going to be okay. (I need to point out that not all women in tennis agree with this point of view). This pro thinks I think that way because I’m overweight and weak. Not true. Not even close to true.

So I try to stay away from him (thinking, what’s the freaking point? He’s a moron). But Monday I got stuck with him. Only thing is, Competitive and Egotistical Moira were really on display that day. I don’t know if it’s the going to the gym before playing each day now (a half hour cardio, a half hour weights and then onto the courts), or if it’s the weight I have lost so far, but I’m more aggressive on the court. Well, not more – I always was – but I’m going for more and feeling more confident in my ability to.

So I played my heart out in our drills. I was split stepping my heart out and charging the net. I was on fire. At the end of the session, he approached me and said, “Wow Moira, you were really on fire.” I mentioned the pre-play work out and he said, “No, I think you just felt what competition is.”

Wrong again. But, as I lose a bit, is he looking at me differently? Unfair, I say. Or, could it be that I DO hold back a bit when I have extra weight on? Am I not seeing what someone else is seeing? I don’t know. But I do truly believe that, fat or thin, I am the person I am. Go ahead. Try challenging me on that one. I’m too competitive to ever back down. :-)