singing the praises of pants

I have bought new pants, and they are beautiful pants which I cannot take off, because I don't have any other pants because my laundry cart fell over in my crammed-full closet of crap and is barring the door from opening more than a crack and I can peer in and look at the clothes I have heaped up on the floor in a jumbled, slightly stinking pile but I cannot actually get to any of them to wash or to wear, and it really is very difficult to be me.

But back to the pants. Which I have! My size 20-mumbles, I realized, were not sitting at my waist, but hanging down around my hips, with the crotch bagging around mid-thigh. And while that is a look that attracts sexy persons to me like very peckish bees to extremely delicious honey, the pant legs were dragging along behind me on the floor like I was some kind skater dude, and also I started the bad habit of yanking my pants up, pulling the waist band out like I was some "After" photograph in a weight loss infomercial, and demanding everyone look at me and how cool I am because MY PANTS THEY ARE SO LARGE! QUICK, STICK IN A WATERMELON!

Since I have little to no self-control, it was clear that the pants would have to go. And they did. Right on my floor! After I went to Old Navy, and looked around. I thought, well, pants are an investment. I need them to cover my butt. I can spent thirty dollars on pants. I guess. But it turns out that Old Navy has a sales rack, and on the sales rack, things were on sale, but also, they were on sale again so that means, like, double sale! Tiny amounts of dollars! As if money was falling from the sky and saying here I am, please take me!

There were no pants that were attractive, but there were jeans. And usually, I hate jeans. But I grabbed the darkest washes I could find, in many denominations and styles, and tried them on, and as I suspected, the flare/bootcut kinds made me look short and ridiculous, because I have short and ridiculous legs and where are my feet? Please help.

I thought the straight-leg cut would make me look round and ridiculous, because my short and ridiculous legs are also quite round, like hams, but lo. I am telling you, lo. I looked good. I looked really, really cute. I felt cute. They were comfortable. They were two sizes smaller than my watermelon pants. They cost, when I went to the counter, 8 dollars. If I never get my closet door open, the cost-per-wear of these things will go into negative numbers! My pants are going to owe me so much money.

alive. also, kicking

It is amazing how the numbers look so different, on the way down instead of heading up into super terrifying morbid obesity land. 257 is a number to rejoice in, not a number that makes me scared and depressed and feeling like I am failing and a failure. 257 used to be 6 pounds over my third highest weight ever, a number I never thought I'd get heavier than. It is also 14 pounds away from second highest weight ever, a number that made me cry a lot.

It is also exactly 60 pounds lighter than my highest weight ever, the number that made me realize my body was broken, and made me consider weight loss surgery, which is the hardest thing I've ever done.

I have lost 60 pounds so far, and it has been a goddamn struggle every single day. I have hurt in a thousand different ways, from gas and dizziness and weakness and cramps and awesome things like problematic bowel movements. Never in my life did I think I would have problematic bowel movements, or that they'd be the things that made me lie on the floor of the bathroom and kind of vaguely want to die. This has been hard.

It has also made me stupid, forgetful, a crybaby, grumpy, angry, peevish, furious and forgetful.

Vitamins suck, protein sucks, protein shakes suck, exercise sucks, water tastes weird, I hate everything and I want to just stop. I want it all to stop.

The struggle took up most of every breathing moment for the first two weeks, and daily, it's become a smaller and smaller part of the day. For almost an hour, I felt good, and then two hours, and three, and four, and now those hours are in a row, and now there are more of them in a row. Daily, I am surprised when I realize I've hit another snag, and I am reminded that this isn't as easy as it looks and I can't become complacent, and ow, it hurts, oh ow, ow ow. But it gets better and I get better, and here I am, two months later, having lost 60 pounds and looking forward to things getting best.

I'm going to write, as I have time, about the past two months, from the bowel prep to the hospital and the surgery itself, to recovery to now. I want to record these things while I still remember, mostly (since I really am getting stupider every day), and because I think it is helpful and important and because I want to relieve every disgusting moment of it in Technicolor detail, of course. But mostly because it is helpful and important.

Thanks, again – I feel like I am always saying thanks – to everyone who checked in on me and wrote emails and commented and thought about me. It is, as always, immensely appreciated.