I wasn’t planning on posting today, but I chanced upon Mamakat’s prompts and couldn’t resist this one, though I’m obviously very, very late…

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

The answer seems so obvious to me I’m wondering if any of you will be surprised by it. But first a short premise. There are a lot of things I would change about myself, some serious and important, some trivial and fatuous. I’ve always considered myself a work in progress and part of my job, part of living life, is continuously changing and improving and tweaking at myself. I’d like to be more cultured, I’d like to be more patient, I’d like to be more active, I’d like to be more fearless, I’d like to be a better cook, I’d like to can my food and knit scarves and do crafts with my kids… the list is endless, all these things, though, I can work on and strive towards, over the years some I’ll conquer, some I won’t, goals will be forgotten or added along the way, but this is more of a snap my fingers and get a result kind of question and that would take all the fun out of the process. I’m healthy, so I don’t need to change my health, I’ve got a husband I love (most of the time) so I don’t need to change my love life… So, if there was one thing I could change about myself it would be my metabolism. That’s it. That’s the only thing I could think of, off the top of my head that I can’t change by sheer willpower.

The reasons are, I believe, obvious. I’d like to be thin and not have to work for it. Of course, I could be thin if I really wanted to, if it was really important to me (like scarf knitting, apparently), I could stop eating and start running or swimming or doing some other modern torture activity every day and I’d be thin. I’d also be unhappy. Because I like food, I like butter and full fat everything, I like sugar and sodas, and I love my couch and my tv. I’m not a complete sloth, I eat pretty well in fact, I certainly could stand to exercise more, but I’m reasonably fit. I haven’t changed anything since I was in my twenties, when I was impossibly thin and healthy and looked fantastic in a bikini. What’s changed? Well, I’m thirty-six now, my metabolism has changed (also, I had two kids, but mostly it’s my metabolism). This happens to most people, you get older, you gain a few pounds, nothing to do about it but exercise more and eat less; and therein lays my problem. I just need a faster metabolism. So, MamaKat, I’ve answered your question, now how do I go about getting it??