personal achievement.

i've been made the recipient of my mother's disturbances recently. for the last year, she's been going to a gym (for the first time in her life) and dieting very carefully, and she has lost almost fifty pounds. her health has improved dramatically, as has, i think, her self esteem, because she can now wear not only clothing that she hasn't worn for 20 years, but she looks like she did when she was my age. she weighs less than me now >_<

however, a close friend of hers recently had gastric bypass surgery. she was very overweight. but before she had surgery, she first interrogated my mom about it, apparently unwilling to believe that mom had dropped all that weight through simply "diet and exercise." and right before she went into her surgery, she said to my mom, "now i'll look just like you!" my mom is understandably very proud of her accomplishment: she had to sacrifice a lot, not just the pleasure of food, but also a fair amount of physical comfort as her body and joints accustomed themselves to this more strenuous lifestyle. when a close friend of yours refuses to accept your accomplishment that you made through sacrifices and self-control, it's naturally somewhat upsetting.

is it jealousy? is it the refusal to accept that someone else can do what you can't? weight is, of course, both a very personal and a very public thing. maybe it's just that in this age of self-esteem-boosting, it's harder and harder to accept a personal weakness in the face of accomplishment.