it's a new dawn, It's a new day, it's a new life

So birthday festivities are over and being forty is still no big deal.  Everyone who came this weekend knew about my surgery and was asking how I was feeling - I think they were all surprised to see me as chipper and energetic and lively as I was.  If I've said it once, I've said it 30 times now.  I feel better today, than I did this time last year.

When you make the decision to pursue weight loss surgery, the notion that it would be an easy out or an easy decision, is as ludicrous as red rain.  NO ONE approaches this quickly and without serious reservations.  It's not natural to admit defeat.  It's also not economically sound.  Any investment in one's self is a good one, but when diet alone is the end goal, it's not like people just have $16K just lying around.  And I think when other people look in at this, they expect to see desperation, deathly pale skin and sallow faces.  They expect to see someone near their ends, rather than someone on the mend.  That's probably because fat people never complain about being fat.

They complain about skinny people being idiots.  They complain about skinny people not understanding, and companies not being smart enough to accommodate their clients.  They complain things may not fit right, or that the world is not made for them, and they'll tell you straight up that fat is not a choice.  And they're 100% right.  Well, except for the idiot part.  But, no one understands the life of a fat person, til they are one.  It's a little like being black or gay I imagine.  Until you are what you're supposed to empathize with, well, then the empathy is wasted.

As I was putting this article together, I honestly googled these words "image fat people", and what resulted were pages and pages worth of links to sites where people are bullied and pasted up as jokes.  There is not a serious fat photo out there?  They are all "hilariously funny photos" of people who are easy targets and blatantly pointed out as jokes.  It makes me feel sad and appalled.  And for that very reason, there will be absolutely no photos in this post.

So, it was a huge non-scale victory for me this weekend, to tell people I was doing great, to show off my scars and to reassure the world that 40 felt awesome.  Especially as compared to how 39 felt.  Can you imagine that?

And the best gift I received was having my closest friends and family here to share it with me.  No part of this event in my life was about the tangible.  It was fully and completely about living it.  And for that reason, there's nary a photo of the party either.  Because this weekend's lesson to me was, you can be in pictures or you can live the moment.  I had too much fun living this weekend, and to run up the stairs to dig out the camera and ask someone to take the photos for me would have meant another lost moment.

And that means...I just succeeded in my mission.  My purpose in having this surgery was not about watching a number on the scale.  While that's a big measure, it's not my success indicator.  I want the chance to see my child grow up and have kids of her own.  I want the chance to live life to the max and enjoy all this stuff I worked so hard to get.  This weekend marked the very first step of that very awesome journey...It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life...and I'm stoked!