anne | | # | 
Some people call them yay moments, or Aha moments, or smilestones, but I will tell you right now, I will kill myself flat dead before I allow any of those words to pass my lips. Except in an ironic manner. I give myself a pass for irony, which is delicious like candy and twice as fun. But not as fun as puns, which are like bon bons or maybe kittens. Which you can eat like bon bons.
Anyway! I did not have a yay moment, or a smilestone – what happened was that I realized that I could do something now that I’ve lost 75 pounds which I haven’t been able to do in a really long time because I was so out of shape and it made me extremely happy.
I’m starting to kind of understand the “smilestone” thing. It’s shorter, anyway.
On my day off, which was today, I decided that I should get out of the house because hiding like a rat in the dark is probably not healthy, and also it was lovely out, with sun and wind, in a way it has not been for awhile, around here.
What I did, despite the bright sun which burns and my natural, inherent lazy nature which will ultimately be my downfall when the revolution comes and my back is up against the wall, was walk on down to the main drag of my neighborhood, with the shops and the things, and I browsed, window-style, up one side and down the other, and into the coffee shop for delicious herbal tea, and then into the bookstore for an hour, up and down the aisle, and then toddling on home, perfectly not-tired, if a little dazzled from all the weather.
This represents, more or less, 10 or 12 blocks, maybe. Some of them slightly uphill, even! They are not long blocks, granted, but considering that it had been hard for me to walk the two blocks to the bus before my surgery, and was still hard after what with being as weak as a bon-bon-sized kitten, this was a revelation to me. I did not stop to rest, or need to take a break. I remember considering waiting for the train to take me the four blocks home from where I was, and then idly dismissing the possibility.
I walked! Easily and happily and without any coercion from Guy, who demands that I not die from some kind of pulmonary embolism, which he insists is still a possibility and which I think is just a scare tactic. I walked, comfortably and happily and recreationally – it is like I’ve got a piece of my life back, a piece of normal life, and I’m on my way back to being normal.
anne | | # |
When I first read about it – how losing weight so quickly will make you super crazy ("It's like you have PMS all the time!" they said, all the post-surgery patients who had been going through it for weeks and months and almost a year) it should have been one of those things that gave me pause. Major pause. Hormones, stored in fat, being dumped into your bloodstream by the cartload. And I have never been a girl who deals well with hormones. Super, major, extra pause.
Instead, I was consumed by debating the ethics of weight loss surgery with myself, giving up versus giving in versus giving out versus but it's hard versus but I have to versus what the fuck am I doing versus what the fuck will I do if I don't – the whole messy ordeal. I read everything I could get my hands on, written by post-ops, who could tell me everything that could happen and when and why and how, and some of it seemed very important and some of it, quite frankly, I shrugged off.
I don't even know why I shrugged it off – hubris, I guess. So many people having problems with the disgusting taste of protein shakes, but I would be different, because geeze, people – they're not that bad. Except, as it turns out, they made me want to die rather than drink them, in the early days. Take as much time off as you can? I don't need that much time off! Everything will taste different? Oh, come on! How can my tastes change. Except – well you probably know the punchlines already. You are smart, and very pretty.
And the next punchline, you know that too, for the way that I thought the whole PMS thing couldn't possibly be as bad as they said it was.
Except that it's not, and it is making me mad, because I want to blame everything on it.
It is hard to be alone, anymore, without feeling intensely, painfully, outrageously alone and lonely. Except I can't bear the thought of seeing anyone, because they don't love me and never did and anyway they shouldn't because I am awful and ridiculous and mostly I don't even understand the things that are coming out of my mouth, either, so I don't expect you to, though it's probably just hormones, making me stupid, and forgetful, and crazy and weird. But maybe I am just stupid and forgetful and crazy and weird. Or maybe the hormones make me think that I am stupid and forgetful and crazy and weird. Or maybe I just really wish I could drink a bottle of wine and have a cake. I don't know.
What makes it worse is that I am avoiding people because I am tired and possibly or not stupid and crazy and forgetful and weird, which puts me out of practice with the social graces. Except, that's funny – I have never been socially graceful, as it turns out. So that's something else I can't blame on my surgery.
anne | | # |
One of those weight loss blogs, except for how I hate the word "blog" and this isn't so much about losing weight as not wanting to diet, being thirty-something, and just trying to get it - where "it" is read as "everything" - right. Now, getting it right means dealing with the aftermath of weight loss surgery - all the scary, all the wonderful, all the frustrating.
"hello i am fat?" (the why behind the title)
Big Fat Deal (a blog that calls attention to issues of weight in the media, pop culture, and society)
Body of Work, my Conde Nast gig. Updated daily!
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