1-Year Out and Counting...

Here it is: the one-year anniversary of my RNY laproscopic gastric bypass.

The official weigh-in for morning was 171.5. But since this is the first day that number’s on the scale, I’ll keep 172 as the weight of record. I’ve lost a bunch of weight this last week. Not sure how, but I’ll take it. Anything’s better than 317.

I can hardly believe that I weighed that much. I don’t at all look or feel like that person. I am still amazed at the bones I see and the curves I feel and the angles I notice.

I marvel at this whole new world that has been opened to me, that I seem to effortlessly fit into—literally and figuratively speaking. I’m never the largest person in the crowd. I’m never the one that everyone shrinks from, afraid to be grazed by the mounds of flesh swishing by. I don’t have to plot a path through a crowded room. I don’t have to get to work an hour early to get a parking space within non-panting walking distance. I don’t even think about those things now.

And maybe that’s the best part of this struggle. I think I’ve gotten down to the core person I really am. Shedding pounds has meant shedding the protective layers of self-doubt, insecurity, resentment, anger. I am more confident, less critical. More focused, less fearful. More awake, aware and actually participating in my life than ever before.

Sometimes I get sad thinking about the years that went by where I was floundering in my fat. I’m sad for that girl. Sad for the time she wasted, the pain she felt, the loathing she heaped upon herself. I think this is my chance to make it right for her. One of my friends said that the fat people we were served a purpose in our lives. They protected us from something. Helped us cope with something. Carried us through difficult things. And we should respect our fat selves for what they did for us. I agree. I was fat for reasons—too many, too complicated, too personal to get into—but I don’t have to be fat anymore. I choose not to be fat anymore.

Another acquaintance says she never felt like she was a fat person. I think she’s more the minority than the majority. I always felt like a fat person—because I WAS a fat person. This past year has taught me that we all transition through this process in different stages and in different ways. Our realities are our own. True growth, however, comes from recognizing that other people’s experiences are just as valid as yours—and letting other people follow their own path. I’ve learned to better acknowledge the diverse, difficult journeys we’ve each embarked upon and respect them. Not control them. Not judge them. Not even try to influence them or only think about them from my own limited, self-censoring perspective.

And I’ve learned to let go of the people that I feel don’t support me in the path I choose. I don’t have to make anyone else but myself happy. It’s easy for me to get bogged down by other’s opinions and want to please them. I think it’s just how I’m wired. But in the last year I realized that I’m strong enough to NOT be influenced by other’s opinions of me, my partner, my relationship, my job, my family, my religion. The fat’s gone, the skin has finally thickened. And it’s made me realize that sometimes the struggle to stand up for who you are against other people’s judgments of you simply isn’t worth the time or effort. Because in the end, who are they to judge you? I’d rather cut them out of my life and move on.

Moving on. Where am I going from here? I don’t think I’m going to worry about it. I have a few goals, like losing a bit more weight, stabilizing and getting ready for plastic surgery. I’d like to exercise more—though I probably never will. There are a few things I’d like to do, like Paris for my 40th birthday next summer.

The lack of passionate focus and determination at this point I think speaks to how I’ve changed the most. Patience was never a virtue of mine. It’s still not. But I have a greater appreciation and respect for it. I think I’d like thing to slow down for a while. I’d be happy to just see where everything takes me instead of trying to force my life in a specific direction. What happens, happens. If it’s good and it make me happy, all the better. And if sucks dangling donkey balls, then I’m a stronger person to deal with it.