Let's see. How can I say this? I don't define myself by my weight loss alone. But my weight is a part of me. While I was really fat, I could hide behind the fat. In this world, fat people are anonymous. No one pays attention to them—"ignore them and they will go away." I think that's more true for women than for men. Women are supposed to be these delicate little creatures. And if you don't think that way, you are in the minority. Anyway, for years I could operate under the radar. Now, I cannot. People—especially men—have noticed me. I get doors held open for me, a hand lent to help me descend the stairs of a bus—which I have taken—and many other things perhaps considered chivalrous but nice nonetheless. And I cannot say that I don't like it. But it feels strange.
Also many people think I am the mother of my two little nieces even though I am old enough to be their grandmother. I am, in fact, their great aunt. All of the exercise has taken years off of my appearance—and I'm not complaining about that. It's just that it feels strange. It's not something that I am comfortable with. But I could get used to it.
When I say that I don't know who I am, it's that these kinds of things didn't happen to me for years. They happened to some other person in some other lifetime. This is unfamiliar territory to me. I'm walking on foreign soil, and I'm trying to figure out the exchange rate for the currency here. Anyone who has lost a significant amount of weight can tell you this is true. There are feelings and emotions that go along with it.
I never thought they should just do bariatric surgery on people without getting to the cause of why they got so fat to begin with. There's a reason people consume so much food that they become obese—and it's more than just a sedentary lifestyle. It's psychological too. It's the same kinds of reasons people become addicted to alcohol or drugs. It does something for you. It alleviates pain, loneliness, hollowness, shame, depression, and, you name it, many other emotions and feelings. It fills voids in your life. Somehow, it makes you feel better—in the beginning. But then, the cure becomes worse than the disease. And people lose their ability to cope without their drug of choice. And the cycle continues until they make it stop. People have to stop it themselves. And that's where the problems lie because people don't always have the tools to figure what in the hell happened to begin with, let alone how to make it stop.
And that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to figure out what in the hell happened so I can make it stop. And then all of the new found confidence can mean something and really take me places.
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