Today Can Be The Beginning

Of Anything. Or Nothing. I'm in a sort of "Is That All There Is?" kind of mood. All this work on the "Healthy Eating Plan" and all the walking and it's all overwhelming me.

Who am I now? Who do I want to be? Eight weeks till the END of this one year commitment to change. On January 5th I will have the opportunity to make a new commitment.

The weight loss has changed me. I smile. I feel like the "inside" person and the "outside" person match. I was always surprised, before, to catch a glimpse of myself, unawares. Who is that? Oh, gosh it's ME!!!! No. It can't be. It is. And I would want to run and hide. At one point in time I remember standing in front of a floor to ceiling mirror at Gap and seeing a Weeble looking back at me. All round in the middle with a little head bump and little feet bumps. A Weeble.

Now, I look like a regular person. Most times. A regular person who is ridiculously happy about fitting into the jeans she has on or the tiny spandex shirt. Tiny for me. Not you. And all that ridiculous happiness plays havoc with the past. Being a judgmental Virgo and all. I see faults and I pick away at them. Yours. Mine, certainly. Why was I so wrong for so long?

I can't just stand there looking into today's mirror and be happy. I have to wonder about all the years of Weeble. Why was I like that? What happened to make me want to change. Why was the change so easily accomplished. Yes. I said easily. I never struggled. I was never hungry. I never, until this month, was counting the days till January 5th. I just kept moving along, one day at a time and really, am just as shocked that it worked as everyone else is.

When asked, about how I did this, I say "I was ready to change". As simple as that. I was tired of carrying 100 pounds extra of guilt, sadness, failure, low self esteem, unworthiness, history and whatever else had been dumped onto me, around anymore. It was too heavy to carry. The weight came off but so did the baggage. Years of it. A lifetime of not being what anyone wanted. I've been unpacking that baggage as the weight came off.

Now it's time to unpack the last 30 pounds of baggage and I am dragging my feet, eating a cookie, not counting my calories, not weighing and measuring everything I eat. Being self destructive. Because the last of that baggage is the most toxic and the most familar and the hardest to face up to. Because to get rid of that last 30 pounds, I have to face up to what I am.

And I would guess, to do that, I have to admit, to my own self, that I am a failure. I never finished college. I never had a proper career job with a salary. I don't have professional credentials. I never tried hard enough to get any of these things. But they are what I always wanted. A profession. A job. To be able to support myself.

Wow. So today can be the beginning of unpacking that baggage. I can certainly go back to school and finish college. And a degree will probably get me a job. I was going to say that I might be too old. But a classic Ann Landers line came to mind. When a guy said "I'll be fifty in the 4 years it takes to finish college." Ann replied "So how old will you be in four years if you don't go to college?" But what do I want to be when I grow up? How do I discover my true calling? Can anyone light the way?