The Last Day of Feasting

I'm such at a different place than I thought I might be in. My day today is going to be full of getting my house in order, literally and figuratively. I've been working on the internal stuff. Today I want to get organized and purge the kitchen of stuff no longer needed, get everything good and clean, and then tomorrow the race is on...And my energies can be devoted to that. My poor hubby, after working four 12-day shifts in a row, is plum worn out and felt like he needed to work because I was in work mode. But Lord knows there are plenty of times he's working while I'm doing nothing but sitting on my assets... :) So, he is resting and I am working. And it feels good!

I already have tons more energy. It's so amazing to note how much a change in mental energy can affect your whole world. There is peace in my home, in my marriage. I feel confident and capable. I think sweet sis was right in saying that I had just surrendered. I think I surrendered to life in general. EVERYTHING was too hard for me. So I just gave up. I was simply existing. So sad to see it in black and white...But I'm so grateful for this revelation.

Now, I absolutely know that WLS is not going to solve my problems. I know that there are things that I may have blamed on the weight and when the weight is gone, those things will still be there. I know life will not be perfect. I know that the change in me might be hard for some. I know that I'll have to offer grace to myself and many around me. There are many, many issues in life to address and work on... But, SOH reminded me of this quote from Forrest Gump...

[Forrest Gump referring to Apple Computer] "Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, that's good! One less thing."

Losing half of me, literally, is just "one less thing" to worry about about. And it's a big, big thing.

You know, it's so exciting to be facing a difficult situation and KNOW the outcome ahead of time. I don't know where I will be in 2 years, or in 5 years, or in 10 or 20 years... But I know that if the Lord sees me through this surgery and through my recovery and allows me to live to actually get healthy, I know that I will lose a good part of my excess weight. I don't know how low I'll get or how low I WANT to get... As my favorite WLS author thus far has written, "I will know it when I get there." (Pat Peck in Exodus from Obesity) I know I don't want to be a stick figure. I know that I think curves are healthy and beautiful and something to celebrate about being a woman. It's been so long since I was "thin" that I have no clue how much I would like to weigh. But again, I will know when I get there. No diet in the world can guarantee success. There is not enough willpower, discipline, whatever... to attempt to lose 130-140 pounds and know for absolute sure that a majority of it will come off... It is just impossible. That is totally setting yourself up for failure and disappointment, and I am totally convinced that it cannot be done. I'm not saying that weight loss cannot be achieved. And maybe I'm being way too absolute about what I'm saying. I've just come to the point where I've realized there is NO OTHER WAY for this to be done and have the same miraculous results. As Peck says, and I agree, to the morbidly obese, you really only have two options... Obesity or surgery. I think it's that plain and simple.

I have been blessed to be spared health problems. By God's grace I don't have high blood pressure or diabetes or sleep apnea or high cholesterol. I've been plagued with things like low-back pain, and knee pain, and migraines, and depression, and insomnia, infertility...all that could be a result of obesity.. But if I don't nip this in the bud NOW, it's just a matter of time before all that stuff does happen...I want a LIFE... I want to live and experience life. I have lived years and years behind closed doors more or less.. Not as extreme as an agoraphobic or anything, but I haven't been LIVING...I have been EXISTING... And now I know that I will have no excuse but to get out and run and jump and LIVE...

Pat Peck says in her book that after her surgery she started walking with a friend and they would walk and walk and walk and talk for hours upon hours. One day he said, "why do you go on these 15-mile walks with me?"....and she responded with "because I can!"... I LOVE, love, love that... there are so many things I have not been able to do.. Now I will have no excuse. And there is no need to be sedentary and trapped inside my home and lonely and scared with every single thing being hard for me. There is absolutely no need...

Today is a day of feasting for me. And not a day of binging. I've done my share of that. Binging is done in private with guilt and shame and remorse and punishment and desperateness. Feasting is about celebration and gathering with those you love and honoring each other; rejoicing in life, in love, in friendship, in what God has done and in what he's going to do. So today, I feast.

I ate a bagel with cream cheese and a cold coke on ice this morning. I ate those things and savored every bite and enjoyed it. I was flooded with memories of SOH introducing me to bagels with cream cheese when we were teenagers and teaching me that nothing was a good as a cold coke on ice (try it if you never have... a warm canned coke over ice is nothing like a can that's been in the fridge and THEN put over ice!!)....(if you want to know what is good, ask the fat girl...TRUST me..she knows!!!) :) There are memories associated with food, with feasting, with celebrating. And that is a good thing.

There is much work to be done in my mind regarding food and my relationship with it. Food is not the enemy. It's not wrong to love food and celebrate it, celebrate with it. God was so good to give us taste buds. You know if we didn't have them, we wouldn't know the difference? We wouldn't eat and say, I wish I knew what this tasted like...Because we'd never known anything else... So truly God wanted us to enjoy food and take pleasure in it. But like most anything, it can be thwarted and abused. Which is what I have done, for sure, most of my life...

So, my solace will come from elsewhere, and it will NOT be easy. Of this I am aware... But for today, I celebrate, and I feast. I honor the little fat girl who didn't know anything different, who did what worked for her...I celebrate who she was and I celebrate all that is to come. Tomorrow begins the shedding of skin...(If only that skin could literally be shed...I know my postop friends will understand...I surely don't yet!!)

Ok, my brain officially hurts now... On to purge the kitchen!!!

Blessings, my dear friends...I appreciate you keeping me in your thoughts and prayers...And please let me know how I can support you.