#like wow mom thanks for making my body dysmorphia just a little worse!

[xskyll]

My mother has a Christmas tradition where she buys me a shirt in a size (or two) too big every year. I've been the same size now for over ten years, but I used to be 40 lbs heavier. While I was losing weight, she would frequently tell me how bad I looked (for context, after those 40 lbs, I am still about 30 lbs heavier than what is considered ideally healthy for my height, so it's not like I was becoming worrisomely thin, and I lost the weight very slowly).

Usually, she doesn't ask if the shirt fits, but if she does, I say it's too big and remind her of my size. She always says something like, "Oh, well, I thought it looked small. I don't have the receipt. Just wear it anyway," or, "Maybe you could take it in on your sewing machine."

It's like opening a box every year with a note inside that says, "Do you REALLY think you're that size? Look at your face, honey. Your waist. You're fatter than you think."

Anyway, for the last three years, I've had "lose 10 lbs" as a New Year's resolution, and I've been killing myself trying, and failing, to achieve it. So this coming year, I'm going to try to stop dieting and focus on getting as muscular as possible. Forget becoming the dainty, slender princess in the tower. I want to be the buff knight that saves her instead. I'm doing this for me, but I bet my mom will hate me being muscular even more than she'd hate me being thin, so that's just some icing on the cake. Get mad.