So, okay, enough with the politics and me bitching about everything all the time.

Things around here have been great lately. I found out a couple of weeks ago that the disease I’ve struggled with for the past 20 years has simply gone away. At first I thought the doctor was full of shit, but after he started showing me x-ray after x-ray and explaining it all to me, I believed him. So folks, you are now talking to a woman who no longer has Rheumatoid Arthritis! Okay, so I still have some osteoarthritis and a little bursitis in my hip, but I don’t have that bastard Rheumatoid any more! That means that I no longer have to take Methotrexate, which was a BITCH of a drug. Imagine having a migraine headache 3 days out of every 7 and feeling like shit for another 2. That’s pretty much what it was like, every week, for the past 10 years of my life.

Well that little life event made me do some serious thinking. I realized that I had been using this illness as a bit of a crutch, okay, so a LOT of a crutch! I think it was my default excuse for the way a lot of things in my life were. I thought that I was overweight because of the years of steroids and the methotrexate. I excused my laziness as awareness that my joints were deteriorating quickly and I should therefore not push them to their limits. Well, all that thinking stopped 3 weeks ago. What that doctor said to me changed my life. No longer will I use that or anything else as an excuse to not be as healthy and happy as I possibly can!

Yes, I’m fat. And sister, I mean FAT!!!! Huge, gigantic, enormous, obese. So, step number one was to join Weight Watchers. Yeah, yeah, I’ve tried it in the past, but I’ve never had anyone’s full support and allegiance before; this time I have Fu. He joined with me and we are both doing great. I’ve waivered on whether or not I wanted this to become public knowledge, but that like everything else I realized was a crutch. I thought that if people didn’t know then they, therefore, wouldn’t know if I ever fell off the wagon. Yep, that’s an excuse to fail people! So, hello world! I’m fat and I’ve now joined WW. And the meeting we attend is fabulous. It’s all sizes of women and men and every meeting has left me happy, motivated, and optimistic about the future. A future where there is a lot less of me to carry around.

Step number two is to get out there and go. Walk every night, walk until you’re sweating so much you think you might die. Do yard work even if it is a little warm out, take the dogs to the park, walk places instead of driving. So far it’s working. This past weekend we did some major yard work and last night Fu & I walked for a good 30 minutes. Not just a stroll but power walking. I know this may not seem like a lot for many people out there, but it’s a big step for us. We had become very, very sedentary! BUT, it gets a little easier every night, so we push ourselves a little further every night. We are testing our limits and in turn that expands them so that we never reach the point where we regret what we’ve just done.

Tomorrow is our second weigh in. The first week I joined at a different location than Fu. So for our first weigh in, he lost 5.6 pounds and I lost NOTHING! Oh man, let me tell you that was really heartbreaking! I had been nothing but faithful to the “diet” (I prefer to call it a lifestyle change because diet has a bit of a stigma to me) and drank water like it was going out of style. Fu said that he thought it was a difference in scales at the separate locations. I said, no, I’m not going to use that as an excuse, I’m going to try harder, eat healthier and exercise more. And I’ve done it. So let’s hope tomorrow the scale shows me a bit more mercy.

I now realize that after our company was shut down last year and I completed the freelance work that kept me busy right after that, I fell into a bit of depression. I can see it now, but man, I sure couldn’t at the time. There were weeks when I would go for several days without showering and there were weeks when I didn’t even leave the house for 7 days!! That seems crazy to me now, but it didn’t at the time. I just hole’d up in the safety of my home and slowly went a little nutzo! I feel so bad for Brad, but I’m thankful to him at the same time, he put up with some crazy behavior from me over the last year. He is a great man and I’m thankful for him every day.

We had discussions, pre WW, that perhaps I should see a therapist again. (About 5 years ago I went to a therapist for a couple of months. It was, to say the least, life altering.) And I almost went, but then I started thinking back on what I learned last time and that was this; I am the Captain of my destiny. Okay, so that’s a little too “fortune cookie” but you get the idea. If I want something to happen in my life, I have to make it happen. I can’t sit around waiting for fortune to shine her light my way, I have to go out there and find her! I can’t sit around and wait for the fat fairy to make it all go away, I have to work hard. Lord knows I had fun shoveling food down my pie hole all these years, now I need to have fun fitting into smaller clothes and being able to bend over and tie my shoes without cutting off my air flow, you know simple things! Haha

I can look back on my life and see times when life changed for me. Every one of those times it changed because I made it change.

The first time was when I graduated HS. I was unbelievably shy and a complete wallflower, so when I moved to Dallas and started college I decided this was my chance for a fresh start, I blossomed into a friendly, outgoing, fun-loving young woman. I am proud of my college years and the fun I had.

The second time was when I felt my personal life was stuck in a never ending cycle of sadness and anger. I took charge and made some drastic changes. I left an 8 year relationship, I moved to a different town, I began to really devote a large part of my time to my career, and I struck up new friendships and accepted offers to go out with acquaintances. Those changes lead me to some of the happiest and most productive times of my life. I advanced in my career, I traveled extensively (even taking a vacation by myself, something HS Squeeky NEVER would have dreamed of), I partied like I was back in college, and ultimately those changes led me to Fu. We met because I took a chance and decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. That was the best chance I ever took, it led me to my best friend, my soulmate, my husband.

Now I feel that my life is turning another corner, one that I can’t quite see around just yet but I am very optimistic about where it might lead me.

Wish me luck! Wait, what the hell am I saying, I don’t need luck I’ve got determination!