Last week, I finished assembling my wedding scrapbook. Those who know me will remember that I love to craft, but it may seem strange that I’m just now cataloguing a milestone event that happened in 2014.

Let’s just say progress on this project has been slow. To begin with, I took more than a year to order prints from my wedding.

My mother was furious. She could not understand why she had to wait so long, though I think she chose to needle me for her copies of the pictures way less than she could have. Bless her heart. I couldn’t have told her what was happening in my head at the time, because I didn’t know. Only tiny threads of it were conscious.

To be clear, the photographers were great, and it seemed like only a few weeks had passed when they got us access to our album online—several hundred pictures from before, during, and after the ceremony.

But I had gained weight. I was one weight and size and shape the day I bought my wedding dress. I was a different weight and size and shape the day I got married. The dress had lacing up the back, though, so the fit still felt the same.

And the day was amazing. Everything went about as smoothly as it could have, my beloved and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously, and I felt lucky to be surrounded by so many friends and family.

I knew what I had looked like in the dress before, and it’s not what I looked like in it come wedding day.

I was embarrassed and ashamed. How had I let it happen? How had I sabotaged my own wedding pictures?

At least, that’s how I felt right after the fact. It’s why I avoided ordering those prints.

… which, again, by the way, let me point out!, are wonderful. It’s not about the pictures.

This is about, again, of course, spoiler alert!, me.

A lot has happened between then and now—you’ll notice I’m approaching 10 years married to an amazing guy!—-and I can look back on those pictures with much kinder and appreciative eyes.

It’s not that I “don’t see” my weight. But I’ve spent years shifting my relationship with my body, so what my weight “means” to me is softer and smaller.

So… it feels appropriate to take the time to check in on this now. This whole half-marathon project is asking me to try new things with my body, but my brain and my baggage are along for the ride!

As I get to know this Caitie who does a half-marathon, I want to honor the Caities that came before. At the time, they were the smartest, most thoughtful, most beautiful Caities they could be! I couldn’t have asked anything more from them.

After all, they led me here, didn’t they?

And I’m sure glad to be here.

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