Maybe
it's part of getting older... or maybe it's a result of the surgery and
the changes it has brought... but I find myself searching for who I
AM. Because honestly..... sometimes, I just don't know.
How
much of my life has been wasted on "One Day...", "When I Lose Weight",
"If I were skinny", "If only"..... It feels like I've gone through
life holding down the "Pause" button, waiting for this or that to
happen first. But.... What would my life be like if there was NOTHING
holding me back? Not my weight, my self esteem, my insecurities...
What if I didn't CARE what people thought of me? What if I didn't have
limitations on what I could do. What if I could go back to Graduation
Day at high school, with my new sense of "Freedom", a little wiser than I
was back then, carrying all the hope and belief that I did on that day
of my future. What would I choose to do?
As
I shed my excess pounds, I am also working on shedding all the other
things that I have held on to that have kept me down. Because, let's
face it, although my weight has made things more difficult for me... My
weight isn't REALLY what has held me back all these years, but my own
insecurities about it. At social events I felt awkward, so I kept to
myself. I realize now that it wasn't THEM not talking to ME, By
staying off by myself, my entire body language was screaming BACK OFF.
When we went to the Lake, public pools, water parks, etc. I could have
gotten a bathing suit on and joined in. (Of course, I weighed too much
for some of the water slides, but I could have joined in the Wave Pool
and the Lazy River), but I was so embarrassed of my body, I refused to
be seen in Public in a bathing suit. So I wore Capri pants and a T
Shirt over my swimsuit and stood around waiting at the end of each ride,
sometimes for over an hour, for the my husband and kids to come out.
And it isn't my weight that has kept me from pursuing my dreams.... it's
my fear of what others would think of them. And now.... I've
suppressed those dreams for SO LONG, I don't even know what they ARE
anymore.