Through the Looking Glass

Yes, it's late but like sleep was going to happen. WAAAY nervous to sleep. My house is quiet, the boys and Bill have long gone to bed and I am about to finish up my Christmas cards.

After all I am going to be napping the day away tomorrow and likely the rest of the week in a drug induced haze in traction.

When I wrote about a state of liminality earlier in the year, I can tell you that the past 7 years have felt as if I've been suspended between physically loosing weight but yet in my head not feeling like I look different.

It's not like after tomorrow I'll never have to diet, or exercise, or keep choosing a healthier lifestyle, but after 7 years of making what was a life changing and extending decision getting to this day feels unbelievably cathartic.

Whether you have 10 pounds or need to loose 1/2 your body weigh, the struggle is the same. The feeling that others only see your weight and not you becomes your constant. You judge yourself as you think everyone else sees you. Your weight becomes your worth.

While I can show you a picture of me at my heaviest, words cannot even begin to describe the shell of life that I led. If you ask why today I'm intense often to an extreme, driven, and have boundless energy (most of the time), it's because for years I literally lived hoping to fade into the background.

For all the reasons I moved forward to change my life, to give myself time with Bill and later our boys I have not one single regret. I don't think I will after tomorrow either, even knowing the physically painful recovery ahead.

I happen to find all my old work IDs during the house move. Evidence of a really long road behind me, more still ahead, but never a day I want to re-live a former life.

2004



2 months out


1 year out



Today 7 1/2 years later. By far my favorite pic. I look as happy as I feel day after day to be at 1/2 my original weight.



Back maybe next week with some end of the year wrap up posts. Thanks for good thoughts, prayers, anything you got and want to send my way today.

A big thanks already to Bill and his sense of calm these past days and for his caretaking in the days ahead.

See you on the other side of 7 hours of surgery and a celebration of being on the other side of the looking glass.