“Well I Wish I Had Some Money, and I Wish I had Some Love…But Keeping My Own Sanity’s Gonna Be More Than Enough.” – Lindi Ortega

Well it certainly has been a long time since I wrote anything.  And a lot has happened since I last wrote in November….I really don’t even know where to start.  So I’ll just start.

I published my last post on November 5.  On November 7, I lost my job.  My position was eliminated, which in theory was not a huge surprise to me, but in reality it came out of nowhere.  Because of my separation agreement with Pictometry, I really can’t discuss the details but I will say my position was collateral damage of budgetary changes.  It was not a result of my performance.

That did not stop me from falling down the rabbit hole.  All the careful habits I spent the year building basically disappeared in a day.  Which looking back now, surprises me because honestly, I can’t say I was happy in my job.  I wasn’t even that upset on the day it happened.  But the next day, I woke up and went to the gym just like any other Saturday and then had no idea what to do with myself.  So I sat down to eat breakfast like I always do on Saturday mornings and started watching Sons of Anarchy for the first time from the beginning.  

I didn’t stop watching it until I was completely caught up to the current season.  (Full disclosure - I took a two week break when (SPOILER ALERT) Opie died because I was so devastated I wasn’t even sure I wanted to watch anymore.  In those two weeks, I started watching all over again from the beginning, so it wasn’t really a break.  It was just a break in continuity.)  That’s what my life became after I lost my job.  On the couch, watching TV, avoiding anything and everything other than SoA.

Except for love, of course…there always time and energy for love.  I started seeing someone around this time.  (I use the term “seeing” very loosely.  Why is everyone so damn afraid?)  He is a very private person and I want to respect his wishes so I’m not going to talk about him online.  But I will say I am very, very into him and I can see the potential for something much greater with him. Whether or not that potential is reached will be another story for perhaps another time.

I published my last post on November 5 and that night I went to check out a Felix lead.  I had put up a bunch of posters around my gym and a girl who lived down the street from my gym called me and said she was positive she had my cat.  I was excited but I had heard that a million times so I wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t Felix.  But it was an adorable older kitten, probably very close to a year old, with a moustache who seemed like he couldn’t wait to cuddle with me.  While he purred and rubbed against my legs and stood up on his hind legs begging me for attention, the girl gave me a sad story about how her landlord won’t let her keep the cat and how she doesn’t have a car so she can’t take him to a shelter, so even though he’s not my cat, will I please take him anyway.  She obviously had no clue how to look after a cat…he had no litter box and she had been feeding him nothing but table scraps for two weeks since she let him inside her house.  

I told her I would go to the gym and think about taking him.  I had brought with me a can of cat food and I gave it to him and he devoured it like he was starving.  I’m a sucker.  I knew I wanted to take the cat, but obviously I had to check with Sam first.  It’s his house, he wasn’t thrilled about having cats in the first place and now that we were separated, it wasn’t really my call.  I asked him before I went into the gym and he said he was actually fine with the new cat, so he brought a cat carrier over to me when I was finished at the gym and the two of us picked up the cat and took him home.

(It is these kinds of things that make me realize Sam really did love me and care about me, I just couldn’t see it while I was so busy hating myself.  He knew losing Felix completely devastated me and that nothing he could do could fill the Felix sized hole in my heart.  So he let me have the cat hoping it would bring me some peace and comfort.)

It was not a smooth transition.  This cat came into the house and hissed and growled at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING…….the dog, the other cats, the people, the furniture, the air…he just did not seem happy.  So we put him in his own very small room for several days until he was ok.  He was completely fine if I went into the room and interacted with him.  But anything else turned him into a terror.  After a few days he was still not ok being around the other cats so Sam suggested moving him to another room where the other two cats hung out pretty often, so their scents would be in there.  Maybe the new cat would get used to their smells.  We moved him into that room and it was again with the hissing and growling, only 10 times worse than it was before.  Sam and I were at a complete loss.  We both have a lot of experience with animals and are not afraid of anything generally, but the two of us took one look at this cat and kind of slowly backed out of the room and shut the door.  

That night I checked on him and he was like a different cat.  So loving and cuddly and happy.  He stayed in that room day and night for over a week until finally he started wanting to come out.  He was kind of aggressive in his play towards the other cats which they of course did not appreciate but he was not neutered and I thought, hoped, that would fix that problem.  Whiskey, who was best buddies with Felix, had absolutely no interest in the new kid and seemed extremely annoyed by his antics.  Sugar, who up until this point really disliked all cats including Felix, seemed infatuated with the new kid.  She followed him around and admired his antics like she was smitten.  I called the new cat Atticus.  I don’t know why, other than the name just seemed to suit him.

 

Atticus has turned out to be the most affectionate cat I have ever seen in my life.  He wants constant cuddles.  When I come home, he runs up to me and stands up on his hind legs and reaches up his paws like a baby asking to be picked up.  Even Sam became very attached to him.  He really has filled that Felix sized hole in my heart and sometimes I feel very guilty for it.  I also have called Atticus Felix more than once…they are very similar in so many ways.

While all this was happening, my grandfather, who you may recall I wrote about at some length last Summer, became ill and just never quite recovered.  It got to a point where he could no longer take care of himself or live alone.  He was in the hospital for several months until last month when a place opened for him at a long term care facility.  I may write more about this in the future, or I may not….I dunno.  It’s difficult for me to talk about.

I still had not heard anything from USCIS and Sam and I were both feeling very anxious to change our living situation.  So I began looking for a new place to live.  I had some savings in Canada that I decided to cash out and use to set myself up in a new apartment.  It’s kind of a big gamble because if the US government decides I can’t stay, then I’ll need to come up with some more money to help me move to Toronto and set myself up there.  I do feel I’ll be able to stay in the US.  Sam wrote a very supportive affidavit and although we don’t have all the evidence the government is looking for to prove a real marriage (things like kids, wills, joint bank accounts and joint mortgage), we do have all kinds of other evidence.  So I think I’ll be fine, but still, I can’t feel 100% sure about that until I have my 10 year Green Card in my hands.

Still, I decided that for both mine and Sam’s sanity, I needed to take that risk.  The first apartment I looked at in person was in Penfield and I really liked it right away.  I visited the property at all hours of the night to see what it would be like and I felt very comfortable there.  The space was huge and there was a pool on the property.  I wanted to take it, but I was still on unemployment insurance.  I didn’t feel I should sign a lease until I had a job.  Then a job offer in East Rochester came along a week or so later.  The job and my apartment are maybe 5 minutes away from each other.  So I accepted the job and signed the lease and started planning my move which would happen on March 7.  Suddenly everything was starting to turn around.

In January I took a trip to Canada to get my hair done and buy a few new clothes.  I had not bought any new clothes since losing 140 pounds…I was still wearing what I had in my closet and it had gotten to the point where everything was just way too big.  I started my weight loss journey wearing size 5x and 6x.  Pretty much the biggest size I could ever find is what I wore.  Nothing in Lane Bryant or Addition-Elle or Torrid fit me.  Nothing.  I could only shop at Pennington’s or online and hope that what I ordered fit me, which it usually didn’t.  I wore a size 48 D bra.  And my bras were now hanging off me.  

I decided to try Addition-Elle since it has been years and years since I could shop there.  I walked around the store picking up things I wanted to try and I chose size 22 (4X) everything, not really believing these pieces would fit me.  I grabbed a few size 44D bras and headed for the change room.  The sales person kept insisting the things I was picking out were going to be way too big for me.   I thought she was just flattering me and was really kind of full of it.  But she was right.  I tried on piece after piece and each one was too big.  I could not believe it.  The sales girl took all the pieces back out to the store and brought me size 20 (2x)  in everything and some 40D bras while I sat there in the change room in my underwear and bawled my eyes out.  I really don’t know why that affected me the way it did, but I felt overwhelmed….. with happiness, sadness…everything all the same time.   I was now wearing the same sizes I wore in university.   It has been my goal this whole time to re-claim the life I had, should have had before I allowed being raped to destroy my life.  I wanted to get back on track to where I lost my way 20 years ago and I felt like I was coming full circle.  I was starting to feel healed.

On the way home from Canada, I had a very scary accident and thought I was going to die.  There was an ice storm and the entire QEW was an ice rink.  They were closing down the road and I was behind an emergency vehicle that was veering people off the road.  As I tried to switch lanes, my car spun out three times and slid into the guardrail on the other side of the highway.   Miraculously, I didn’t hit anyone and no one hit me.  There were already several cars off the road in the ditch and police and emergency vehicles were tending to them.  Someone drove by me and gave me thumbs up as if to ask if I was ok.  I was, so I just simply got off the highway and onto the Niagara Parkway.  I pulled into a park area to check out my damage and fell getting out of my car…the ground was a complete sheet of ice.  There were other people in the area and we all discussed our options.  It didn’t seem very safe to be driving.  I contemplated whether I should really try and head home to Rochester or if I should go to my parents’ place about a half hour away.  

There was an older couple heading to Buffalo who didn't know how to get there, if not on the QEW, from where we were so I decided to go back to Rochester so that I could show them the way.  We had to drive along the Niagara Parkway, which is right beside the Niagara River, to get to the Peace Bridge.  There's no guardrail.  You are RIGHT beside the Niagara River.  It is a beautiful drive in the Summer but under these conditions, very scary and very treacherous.    We finally got to the Peace Bridge and I went through the Nexus lane so I parted ways with the couple.  The customs guard was extremely concerned and said the roads were awful.  He was right.  It took me 5 hours to get home whereas it usually takes less than 2….the roads were no better on the American side than it on the Canadian side.  I-90 was almost like a scene out of Walking Dead.  Traffic crawled along and there were cars overturned and in ditches everywhere, sirens and flashing lights and people out of their cars walking on the side of the highway.

As I drove home, Sam called me and told me there was a letter from USCIS and wanted to know if he should open it.  I told him yes and he read it to me.  They wanted more evidence.  I hadn’t submitted enough in my application in July.  The drive home was long and so very tiring and I was completely emotionally drained by the day, between the clothes, the accident, the drive and now this.  

Switching gears, as I was getting ready to move, I started to become very concerned about Whiskey.  Sam had been telling me for months that he was too skinny and I just didn’t want to see or hear it.  It finally got to a point where he wouldn’t eat.  I couldn’t entice him with his favorites and he wouldn’t eat even if I tried to force feed him.  I brought him to the vet several times to try and save his life.  We did blood tests and gave him fluids intravenously, but nothing seemed to help.  He got weaker and just wanted solitude all the time.  The last few nights he was with us, he was shut by himself in the same room Atticus had been in, with a space heater and blankets and he seemed content.  But he couldn’t move without help.  The vet told me on each occasion she felt he could not be saved, that he was in kidney failure.  So on Valentine’s day, I made the very difficult decision to let him go.

A weird kind of NSV happened after that.  Sam came with me for Whiskey’s final appointment and on the way home, we went to Savoia, an amazing Italian bakery.  Remember, I had abandoned all my new habits by then and I intended to eat away my pain over losing Whiskey.  I bought a bunch of cannoli and some other good stuff…..but it just sat there on the counter for a week until I threw it out.  And that isn’t even something I had to force myself to do.  It seems sorrow now has a different effect on my body than it did before my surgery.  Now when I’m sad, my head still tells my body I want to eat and soothe my pain but my body doesn’t respond.  It’s a weird feeling.  I have never experienced a loss of real desire to eat before.

So….that’s where I am now. I’m settled in my own apartment, waiting for USCIS to make a decision on the newly submitted evidence, still "seeing" the same person since November, working at my new job and loving the life I have.  I still have my gym membership and my focus for the next few weeks will be to re-commit to the gym and building my fitness.  I have somehow managed to continue to lose weight and my body continues to shift and shrink.  I’m happy and looking forward to my current challenges being resolved.  I’m excited for my present and my future and I’m accepting of my past.

·         Return of “Random Things” next time.

"Nothing's as obvious as what is lost; Nothing's as painful as the cost." - Blue Rodeo

Well, I suppose I have been quiet long enough.  It’s time for another blog post.

I’m hesitant to write anything because I really hate being misunderstood.  Being misunderstood is one of my greatest frustrations in life.  And I know this post is going to sound somewhat depressing and self-pitying.   Look, in many ways, I am extraordinarily happy with myself.  I’m thriving - physically and emotionally.  This is the healthiest I have been in my entire adult life…and I mean that in the truest sense of the word “healthy”…..and I know I’m just going to keep getting healthier.  Every day I greet the world with nothing but confidence and joy and I know I have absolutely no good reason or right to feel sorry for myself.

But the truth is I’m suffering a bit of an identity crisis.   So, I suppose I AM feeling a bit sorry for myself, even though I have no right or reason.  There are a lot of really, really great things happening and I'm celebrating those things...while I feel sorry for myself.  I pretty much find myself thinking “woohoo!” and “this sucks!” all the time.....sometimes in the same moment.    Apparently I can't just allow myself be happy.  That would be too easy.  I’m working on that….but I’m not there yet.

I’ll start with some great stuff.  Yesterday, I wore heels to work….a hot, Italian pair of four inch heels – office appropriate, with amazing stitching, stylish details and gorgeous distressed leather.  My feet were KILLING me, and I didn't care.  I strutted around the office like I owned the place.  You see, it’s the first time I have worn heels for an entire day in years and years and years….possibly EVER!  Do you understand??  Let me spell it out for you.  Because of my weight, there are a great many simple little things that I have never been able to do before.  One of those things is wear heels.  Could not before .....and now I can.

That, my friends, is a mofo NSV!

It would not have even occurred to me to attempt such a thing if this other little thing hadn’t happened last weekend:  I was parked behind Sam in the driveway.  He wanted to leave so I needed to move my car.  All my shoes/boots that I normally wear were upstairs so I threw on a pair of sandals that I had not worn since last Summer.  They’re Birkenstock type sandals with adjustable straps across the foot.  I just threw them on and started walking, and, I could not believe it………they slipped off my feet as I started walking!  I literally tripped over them.  My freaking shoes were so big I could no longer wear them!

Things like this happen ALL the time now and when they do, they catch me off guard EVERY single time.  I know I should not be surprised.  I’m losing weight….a lot of weight.  Things ARE going to change!  Lots and lots of things will change.  But I swear...I see myself naked and I don't really think I look all that different (except my neck and shoulders). So I forget that I have lost weight all the time……and then when something happens that reminds me, THEN I notice something’s different, and I’m like, "Hey…..You!  Check out this thing that changed!”.    I just HAVE to tell someone.  I want to share my joy…I want them to start screaming and jumping up and down just like I want to do.  But usually I just get a blank stare or a half smile in return.  I get it….unless you’ve had the experience of being trapped in a cage, how could you possibly understand what it feels like to be free?

But this shoe thing is especially exciting for me.  It’s exciting because I have a collection of shoes…. Heels, actually.  Sexy, pointy, strappy, gorgeous, amazing heels that I bought over the years even though I couldn’t stand up in them, or even put them on my feet.  I bought them because I loved them and wanted them.  I bought them because I could completely see the real me in my head and the real me is the kind of woman who sometimes wears heels.  I like heels.  They make me taller.  They’re beautiful.  They’re stylish.  They’re sexy.  They make legs and asses look amazing.  I kept buying more and more heels and I’d keep them shined up and sitting on a shelf like art while I yearned to be able to wear them.  I never gave up on the idea that the day would come when I could actually wear heels.  That day, it seems, is upon me.  Or at least…..I can see the sun rising on that day. 

Another great thing happening for me - Writing.  I am getting paid to write.  I still have my full time job at Pictometry but in addition to that, two agencies now hire me freelance to write for them….it’s called ”content marketing”, but it’s writing.  I am super stoked about getting paid to write, being published (even if it's ghost writing and I don't get credit for it), and the fact that it’s a side job where I have a great deal of control.  I say when, I say where, and how often.  I finish an assignment; I say I want another one…..so they give me another one.  No matter where I go, I can keep doing it.  It’s awesome that I don’t need to sell my soul to make some extra money and I get to do something I feel happy and confident about doing.  I’m still pretty slow and very new to the whole industry so it’s not like I’ve had a lot of assignments or am getting paid a huge amount of money per assignment.  But I’m working on building my skill, speed and experience and then it will become a bit more profitable.

I also have a work trip to Florida coming up in February for the next National Sales Meeting…Amelia Island.  I’m very excited about that.  I have always really enjoyed the road trips down to Florida to visit Sam’s parents, so I’m going to use a week of vacation time and split it up before and after the NSM so I can drive and make a couple stops along the way.  I really loved Charleston, SC but only saw a bit of it once so I may stop there for a night.  Also, there’s a really interesting large retail space called Tamarack in Beckley, West Virginia where all different kinds of artisans sell their creations.  It's an amazing place.  I have picked up several gorgeous pieces there over the years so I’ll definitely have to stop there on the way….for me, no road trip to Florida would be the same without stopping there. (There’s also something pretty magical about the West Virginia mountains, especially when the sun is rising…the mist is intense. Always cool to stop there overnight and experience the WV sunrise.)  Then there’s Nashville, TN which has been calling me for years…..I really want to go there.  It’s more out of the way so that may not happen, but I’m excited to think about the possibilities and make some travel plans.

And….Felix action!  Suddenly I’m getting calls about Felix again.  Tonight I’m checking out two leads after work. 

Ok, so now onto the identity crisis I’m having.  I’m not even sure I can really articulate it, but I’ll try. 

To start with, too many things are uncertain in my life right now and it’s making me crazy.   The number one most annoyingly uncertain thing is my Green Card.  What happens with my Green Card has repercussions in other areas as well so not knowing what’s going on means I can't plan, which screws up my life as well as Sam's and leaves us both in limbo.

You may recall I needed to apply for a 10 year card back in July.  I did so, I got a year extension on my GC and had my biometrics appointment in August.  I haven’t heard a thing since then, which is, sadly, normal for USCIS.  You don’t hear anything until you do.  The timeline for these types of applications is supposed to be 6 months, so - in theory - by January, it should all be decided.  However, Sam and I have used VisaJourney, an online community dedicated to helping people navigate the immigration process, from the beginning……and there are people on that forum who applied over a year ago for their 10 year card and are still waiting.  Their extension letter has expired.  Maybe that won’t happen to me.  But what if it does?

In the meantime, what will USCIS decide to do with me?  Will they ask for more information?  Will they make us do an interview?  Will they deport me?  I  know, I know…just wait and see.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  Except, not really.

Sam and I are at the point of our relationship where we are both ready to move on.  We both NEED to be able to move on.  I need to move out.   We need to get divorced.  I am tired of my ambiguous marital status.  Sam wants to just move on.  But we can’t do a damn thing until the GC issue is settled.  If we divorce in the middle of the process, I need to reapply for my 10 year card and start all over again, pay another fee, as a divorced person.  I’m not completely sure I can move without screwing up my application, but let’s say I could…. I don’t want to move into my own place and then have USCIS come back and say, no you can’t stay in this country.  Then I’ll have to move again. 

Thinking about what happens if USCIS does tell me I need to leave......I mean, it’s not so bad…I’d go back to Canada.  So I find myself kind of “planning” a life in Canada – because there’s nothing left of my old life, I’d be starting all over again there - while also simultaneously figuring out what to do next here in the US.  I have no idea which life I’m going to end up with.   In my weakest moments, I question where it is I even belong.  It’s municipal election time in Canada and I am no longer eligible to vote there.  But I can’t vote here in the US either.  I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.

As I think about the possibility of returning to Canada, I am heartbroken over Felix.  I think, as long as I stay in Rochester, there’s always a possibility I could someday get him back.  It’s possible.  Or maybe staying close to the last place he was seen just makes me feel less guilty for allowing my absolute worst fear about moving to the States – something happening to one of my cats – to come true.   In any case, "feels" about Felix have flared up big time lately.

My road to fitness is going really, really well.  I am constantly amazed at the things my trainer asks me to do and even more amazed when I can do them.  And…the last time I went to the gym, I walked 3 miles for a warm up.  3 miles!  And I wasn’t even hot or tired or sweating for the first mile.  Remember in May when I walked my first 5K and I barely finished it?  I was the very last person to cross the finish line and I was so proud?  Um yeah….now my goal is to be able to walk 5K five days a week….every time I go to the gym just for a warm up…and that goal is within reach.  My trainer wants me to enter a beginner Kettlebell competition in December!  Say, what??   I thought she was talking to someone else when she said this.  I was busy trying to lift a 35 pound steel ball above my head so I wasn’t really paying attention to her, and when I realized she meant me, I started laughing.  So surreal.  Is this my life?  It’s amazing but so weird.  I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone all the time.

Another thing is I’m lonely.  I am truly, heartbreakingly lonely.  There are a lot of different things contributing to this.  I miss my family.  I miss having a partner.  I don’t feel like my friends can really understand what I’m experiencing in my weight loss journey.  And….I do have a lot of friends, but I’m kind of a loner.  I tell myself I want to be alone…I like it, then I feel lonely.  I never used to be like this when I was younger….I was always the social planner.  I brought groups of people together to go out.  I made sure everyone was included.  I was a social butterfly.  When did that change?  You guessed it…after I was raped in my 20’s.  I feel like I need to embrace my need for people instead of just secluding myself all the time.  And this is messing with my sense of self.

Not to mention the fact that most of the people I know in Rochester were Sam’s friends before they were mine and although they have also become mine, I don’t want to put them in the uncomfortable position of “choosing” Sam or me.  I feel obligated to back away and let him have his space with our friends…because if the situation were reversed, that’s what I would want.  Right or wrong, that’s what I would want.

The idea that I will be divorced is another big hurdle for me.  I just feel like such a disappointment and failure.  I feel an overwhelming sense of loss associated with the entire thing, not just for the relationship itself but for the loss of Sam’s family in my life, the knowledge that when I move out, our dog Ladybug stays with Sam, the loss of “home”…these are my people and this is where I belong.   I have no one to take care of…except myself, how dull.  With Halloween approaching, this feeling has been amplified.  Sam and I had two weddings, both on Halloween.  We both love Halloween.  We always decorated the house and it has always been our tradition to watch scary movies and eat candy together on Halloween.  So I’m feeling kind of sad over the loss of that tradition.  And in spite of everything I said above about the GC issue, we have set a move out date for me of April 1.

I have not weighed what I weigh now in at least 15 years.  I haven’t been this “physically fit” (and I put that in brackets because “fit” is relative to my experience) since I was in my early 20’s.  Yet, my body still reflects the damage done by obesity....stretch marks, extra skin, really flabby arms, thighs and belly.  This is all uncharted territory for me.  I don’t know how to act, how to live, how to be and I'm trying to not freak out every second of every day.  I'm trying to handle it with grace and dignity.  I’m stumbling my way through, trying to make good, healthy decisions for myself.  But this is a mindfuck in the first degree.  I know other people who have been morbidly obese for their entire adult life will understand the struggle here and that mostly everyone else will not.  Which just makes it all the more a mindfuck.  I constantly feel like the only one who has smoked weed at a party…and I’m going around to everyone else going, “can you believe that just happened?”  No one else sees what I see.  I just look crazy.  And maybe I am.  I certainly feel crazy sometimes.

I find myself constantly plagued by self-doubt.  I doubt that I’m really losing weight.  I doubt that it’s really happening for me.  I doubt that I will ever be able to do everything on my “list” that I want to do.  I see myself naked and honestly, I don’t see the difference in my body, I really don’t.  I only notice the difference when I put clothes on or I step on the scale or try to do something new.

In addition to that, I have also been having my first physical problems since my surgery.  I’ve been REALLY sick a couple of times in the last few weeks.  (As I write this, I have realized these problems may well be stress induced.)  

The physical changes I am experiencing as a result of my surgery….the loss of the weight, the loss of the comfortable miserable identity I hung onto for so long.   As I lose more and more weight, everything becomes more and more possible and there’s nothing I don’t want to do, nothing I don’t want to be.  It’s all very overwhelming.

Which leads me to my dating life.  Dating should be the easiest, light hearted thing happening in my life right now.  It’s supposed to be fun.  I know this.  But it’s not.  It’s stressful.  I don’t want it to be stressful…it just is.  There are just so many weirdos out there.  So many people with questionable motives.  So many reasons to distrust someone.

And it’s difficult for me to “be myself” while I’m suffering an identity crisis and don’t know how to “be myself”, because I don’t know who “myself” is right now.  I had my first experience with a man telling me if I lost too much weight he would not be attracted to me.  I had to ask him to repeat himself – twice.  I just could not believe what I was hearing.   OK I get it….not everyone appeals to everyone else.  Some men are only attracted to large women, some men are only attracted to thin women.  I get it….but who exactly will be attracted to me right now…the guy who likes larger women or the guy into fitness?  ‘Cos I’m both, and don’t really fit neatly into a physical category.  Just like my hair color, my body is going to change.  So if you're into fat redheads, and you think I'm it, I've got bad news for you buddy.  I need someone with more...... flexible tastes, and that is just not easy to find. 

But seriously, if you are a man who is only attracted to large women and you know a woman has had weight loss surgery, why would you even ask her out?  Why would you waste any time at all trying to get to know her?  Why would you spend the entire first date spewing your hatred for weight loss surgery and trying to feed that woman cheesecake all night after she’s told you how meaningful having this surgery has been to her and telling you how sick she’ll be if she eats it? 

Sometimes it feels like people don’t date to get to know other people.  They date to impose their views on you, their life on you.  They know they want a partner and they don’t care who that partner is…they can envision the life they want and they want to just slot someone they are physically attracted to into that life to complete the picture.  They don’t care who you are, they only care who they can make you be.  You’ve got the look, now they want a puppet who they can tell how to think, how to act, what to say so they get their perfect little life.  If there’s one thing I know I’m not, it’s a puppet.  If there's one  thing I know I do NOT want, it's a puppet master.  If there’s one thing I know I am, it’s a romantic, and the romantic in me doesn’t go for crap like this. Dating is really hard on a romantic.  Dating is a very cold business.  It’s use or be used. 

But the larger issue with dating for me is much more embarrassing.  Truth is, it almost feels like I’m on a quest.  It’s hard to enjoy anyone when you want everyone to be the same person.  There’s a scene in the movie “Love Actually” where a kid confesses to his father that he’s in love and proclaims that there’s nothing “worse than the total agony of being in love.”  Ah yes, unrequited love.  This is the problem I’m facing. 

I mentioned many posts ago that I met a guy - months and months ago - I called him my “ideal man”.  That was a superficial, shallow way to explain how I felt about this person.  Truth is, this is the closest I have ever felt to “love at first sight”.  When I met him, he started talking, and really didn’t stop.  I barely got a word in, he talked so much.  He didn’t just go on and on about himself…he was interesting and did ask me questions and answered my questions when I was able to ask…..and everything he said just made me want to know him more.  But the fact that he talked so much gave me a lot of time to observe him and I have never felt so drawn to a man before, so instantly fascinated, so powerfully attracted, so pushed to challenge myself and be better so I could deserve him.

It’s not just that he is physically beautiful, although in my eyes, he is.  More importantly than that, I could see all the men in my family in him….my dad, my brother, my grandfather, my uncles….all their gifts, all their skills and talents, all their flaws…plus his own unique characteristics, and because of that I instantly trusted him, liked him and wanted to be near him.  I didn’t want to leave.  I didn’t know him very well, I had no idea if we were compatible or not but I knew I wanted to find out.

Unfortunately for me, none of those feelings were mutual.  I don’t give up easily and I definitely believe in the whole “if you really want something, you fight for it until you die”/ Say Anything School of Romantic Thought, but after someone tells you several times they are not interested in you, you risk becoming a stalker if you continue to pursue.  You don’t look like a passionate person fighting for what they want, you look crazy.  So I was forced to accept I had reached that threshold. 

Since that time, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this guy.  Yes, I know, it's been months.  I have been known to carry a torch for a decade.  I don't get over people easily.  I want to know him.  I want to date him.  But since he won’t date me, I try to move on.  I don’t expect every other guy to be like him.  I know he’s not perfect and he's not "ideal".  But he did show me the feelings I want to feel for my partner and he showed me I am actually capable of having those feelings.   I’m not interested in dating someone I only kinda like and letting that grow into a stable relationship based on friendship.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I'm looking for.  I want to feel that spark, those fireworks, that gut-wrenching drive to discover every single thing there is to discover about the person I'm dating.

Oh man, I know how I sound right now.  It’s cute coming from a 10 year old kid with an English accent in a ridiculously mushy, romantic, feel-good movie.  Coming from a 45 year old woman going through a divorce - not so cute….desperate.  Yes, I’m desperate.  I’m desperate to get him out of my head, to feel what I feel for someone else who will return the feelings, and desperate to have a dating life without him sitting on my back the whole time.  I am desperate to not let how I feel about him destroy any more potential relationships.  This is ridiculous, but I have actually thought, hell, if I’m going to move, why not REALLY move and get away from him and his town…..’cos yeah, after 7 years of being with Sam and visiting Rochester, this is that guy’s town.  Everywhere I go, I wonder if he’ll be there.   Maybe a fresh start would help.  Pick a place I’ve never even been to…..I dunno, Austin, Texas, for example, and just GO THERE.  

It’s a nice fantasy to run away like that.  If only it were that easy.  It would serve me no purpose to just run like that.  I do have some stability in my life right now.  Work.  My trainer.  The gym.  These are the things that keep me sane.  When I have no idea what I’m doing or why, I know I have these things.  Love feels essential to me because I’m a dreamy, starry-eyed, impractical, freak and I’ll probably never outgrow that but truth is, love is not essential…not right now.  I still have a lot of hard work to do.

There are only a few things I REALLY want in life.

·         Get Felix back

·         Reach my fitness/weight loss/lifestyle goals

·         Be crazy passionately madly in love

I only have control over one of these things so I’m all in with it.  Everything I’ve got goes towards reaching my fitness/weight loss/lifestyle goals. 

The Return of Random Stuff:

·         I am obsessed with white kitchens.  And bathrooms.  In fact, I love white walls and furniture too.
·         There is no design style better than art deco.  I’m a fan.
·         I always think of myself as a coffee person as opposed to a tea person, but I love, love LOVE me some Chai, Earl Grey, Apricot Spiced and Red Zinger tea.
·         I'm neither a cat or a dog person…I am both.  I want ALL the critters all the time.  I can’t go to a pet store or animal shelter without wanting to take home every animal in the place.
·         I was deeply disappointed by the finale of True Blood.  In fact, the last three seasons were so bad, I have no idea why I kept watching.  I’m only now able to talk about it.
·         I’ve recently discovered a genre of music I can only just barely tolerate:  death metal
·         I can barely eat an entire banana.  Seriously, I’m completely stuffed after eating a banana.
·         I can’t stand tuna or salmon.  I hate the smell.  I hate the sight.  I hate the taste.  If you invite me over to dinner, you better not make me a tuna casserole or salmon on a cedar plank.  If you do, and I say I like it, I’m totally lying.
·         I could eat scallops, lobster and blue crab all day long.
·        The meme I added to this post?  Yeah that’s me.  White girl in yoga pants who loves Fall and is obsessed with pumpkin everything.  Totally.  Me. 

 

 

“Trust Me When I Say I Know the Pathway to Your Heart.” – R.E.M

Overall, I have been feeling really optimistic.  I’m encouraged by my progress so far and I know I have the right mindset to keep making good decisions for myself.  That does not mean I am 100% confident all the time or that I only make good decisions or that I don’t have moments of complete and total self-doubt. 
 
I admit I have been struggling a bit lately with my diet…..for the last month, at least, maybe more.  The scale hasn’t budged, although I continue to notice my body changing.   My shoulders are starting to emerge.  There is a definite…..”space” in my arms and thighs between the muscle and the fat and extra skin that continues to hang there.   I try to not be obsessed about it, to not study my body in the mirror and analyze what I see.  It is what it is and I have very little control over it.  I’m already doing what I can do…obsessing over the result of my work is not helpful.  Easy to say, not so easy to do.

I stopped going to the lifestyle manager I started to see in February.  I felt that perhaps he didn’t entirely understand the dietary needs of a bariatric patient….that he’s used to dealing with bodybuilders.  There is some crossover…nutrition is nutrition.  Clean eating is clean eating.  But weight loss surgery patients do have some unique needs.    More importantly, I could not afford him, my trainer and my gym membership so something had to go.  And I’m not giving up my trainer or gym membership. 
 
Sadly I have also cut nuts out of my diet.  I had been eating nuts as a snack every day.  I love them.  Even though they are good for you and the perfect food, I just cannot handle them right now.  They are so high in calories, and go down so easily that I found I was just consuming way too many calories by eating them on a daily basis.  I’m much better off with cottage cheese as a snack.  No one binges on cottage cheese.

Many bariatric patients struggle with hair loss a few months after surgery and I am now at that point.  I am seriously worried about how much hair I’m losing.  There’s hair everywhere I go…in the shower drain, in the sink, on the floor, all over my bed, on my desk at work, the whole garbage can in the bathroom is filled with my hair…. every time I brush my hair, my brush is full of hair;  every time I touch my head, a handful of hair comes out; it’s everywhere, and I am trying to not freak out about it but I wonder how much I can lose before it will start to show.  
 

I should not be freaking out.  I have already experienced this when I had my lap band.  And I knew it would happen again.  And, if I didn’t talk about it, no one would even know because, lucky for me, my hair is so insanely thick that I can afford to lose some hair.  But still, it is pretty scary.  Logically, I know it will stop sometime.  But I worry it won’t.

I’m also struggling with comparing myself to other weight loss surgery patients.  I know I should not, but there are people who had surgery at the same time as me who have already lost 100 pounds.  I’m nowhere near that yet.  I tell myself that I’m feeling great and making choices that have impacted how fast I would lose weight, and I did that intentionally…so how can I now compare myself to other people who made different choices?  Everything everyone else does just looks so easy.  You don’t get a sense of other people’s personal struggles, especially if they don’t talk about it.  So I wish people would talk about it. 
 
One thing I do know for sure is my sleeve honeymoon period – that time after surgery when you feel the most restriction, when you struggle to consume enough calories and protein to sustain life, when your new stomach probably won’t tolerate many different foods – was very short.  Almost as soon as I came off my liquid diet, I could eat anything.  My stomach tolerates everything.  I definitely get full much quicker than I did before surgery and I don’t get hungry as often, and it’s wonderful to actually experience feelings of “fullness” and “hunger”…….but I absolutely need to track my food every single meal otherwise I could easily eat 3000 calories/day even with the sleeve.  I have learned that if I eat over 1000 calories/day, even though I am working out several times a week, I am probably not going to lose (or gain) any weight that week.  Right now that seems to be my maintenance number.  I really like SparkPeople.com for tracking my food.

So I make sure I eat less than 1000 calories a day and I don’t stare at my body too much and I just accept the hair falling out as a fact that I can do nothing about and I don’t interact with other weight loss surgery patients when I’m feeling insecure.  I just go with the flow.  The old Laura never would have been so compliant, but something I said in one of my previous posts stuck with me:  I need to get out of my own way.
 
This means not fighting everything and everyone, including myself.  I’ve always been an impulsive person.  But I have also always let fear paralyze me.  And I tend to make a decision, act on it and then do something completely stupid to mess it all up.  At this point of my life, my challenge is to make thoughtful decisions that will get me where I want to be, and also not let fear block me from doing things that are scary but might be good for me.  I need to trust my instincts and not do something stupid that will cause me to self-destruct once I have made a decision.  I need to focus my energy where it will do me the most good and when I recognize fear or self-destruction, or impulsivity, I need to just step around it and keep moving on.

This idea of not fighting myself, of getting out of my own way, has to lead to some interesting results.    For example, as a testament to my overblown, recently re-found confidence, I offer this photographic evidence:

This, my friends, is my “racing” number for the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge.   Yes, I, Laura Lea Dennis, former goth girl, “I’m too cool to exercise” couch potato and the girl who would not walk around the block to save her life, have signed up to stroll (not race) through the Corporate Challenge.  3.5 miles.  5K.  Happening today.  At 7pm.

I don’t know who I think I am signing up for a 5K.  People don’t usually do this kind of stuff until after they’ve reached their goal weight.  It’s a common goal to strive for among WLS patients…..1 year post op, lost 100% of my excess weight so I think I’ll do a 5K to show myself and everyone else how far I’ve come. 

But not me.  No….I’m not even 5 months post op, have lost 34% of my excess weight, and am still not even close to being fit.  You probably can’t even see how far I’ve come yet.  If I squint, I can barely see how far I’ve come.  But a couple weeks ago the idea popped into my head that I should do it now…..to hell with waiting.  My company participates every year. At the very last minute, when the deadline for registering was upon me, I registered and that was it.  There was no time to back out. 

For the past three weeks, there has been a voice in my head throwing a temper tantrum and screaming at me, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!??”…but I pretty much just ignore that voice.  Every once in a while, I’ll go…”what AM I doing?”  But I’m doing it anyway.  I’m doing it.

I have no idea if I can actually do it.  The longest distance I’ve walked on the treadmill at the gym so far has been 2 miles and it took me 45 minutes.  So I’ll probably be the last of 10,000 people who crosses the finish line but all I care about is that I do in fact cross the finish line.

Two weekends ago I went to my cousin’s wedding in New York City.  I’ve lost enough weight that I feel pretty good.  But I grossly overestimate what I am actually physically capable of most of the time.  So I headed to New York thinking I could conquer the city and do a million things while I was there.  I couldn’t do a million things.  But I could get a new dress and shoes that I liked, go to the wedding, have a great time, walk to the subway, the train, the hotel, stand around schmoozing at the wedding, and also do 10 other things, but not a million.  And I had a fantastic weekend and I’m glad I went.

Late Saturday night while I was there, I was flipping through channels on TV and happened across the movie “My Cousin Vinny”…just starting.  Some of you may recall that I mentioned in a previous post that this movie was on TV while I was being raped in 1994.  I had never seen it before that but I recognized Marisa Tomei’s and Joe Pesci’s voices and focused on them until it was over.  Afterwards, I found out what movie it was so I could avoid it like the plague.  I refused to watch it.   I left a party once because everyone at the party wanted to watch it. 

In my hotel, I was presented with the opportunity to watch it and I didn’t think about it….I just started watching.  And I kept watching.  I even laughed a few times. The voice in my head kept screaming, “QUICK, TURN IT OFF NOW!”, but again, I just ignored the voice.   It was a pretty good movie.  I did not burst into flames and I did not melt into a puddle of flashbacks.  I was fine.  It’s just a movie.  I went to bed afterwards and woke up the next day just like every other day.  My life went on.

My neighbor Pat has been going through her own journey of sorts since her husband Harold died last July.  A couple weeks ago she talked to me about how she always wanted to try horseback riding…she has never done it before.  I think I have mentioned before that getting back on a horse is one of my goals.  So I mentioned this to Pat and the idea of our doing it together was born.  She is going to wait for me to be ready and then we’ll go riding at a farm owned by friends of hers.  I think September has a nice ring to it.  (I just realized we didn’t talk about English/Western riding and I have no idea which one she meant.  I have no idea how to ride Western style…only English.  No matter…I’ll do it anyway.)

Granted, the riding thing hasn’t actually happened yet, but just the very idea of riding again makes me positively giddy.  I just know this is going to be another one of those things where the voice in my head is screaming and I just ignore it and I’m ready to do it much sooner than I thought I would be.  
  
I have started to nullify the idea that unless I get down to a certain weight, I can’t do the things I want to do.  I’m much much more willing to try.   I’m starting to realize that I know how to make myself happy.  I can do it right now….I don’t have to be miserable until I lose weight.  Being overweight is not a punishment I need to bestow on myself.    Or rather, denying myself the things that give me pleasure because I am overweight is not a punishment I need to bestow on myself.  I can live a whole life and be happy right now.   I owe it to myself to be happy right now.
 
So those are some of the things that have been happening by me simply just getting out of my own way.

In other news, the only response I’ve had to the posters about Felix so far – the ones I posted on the street by my gym -  has been one phone call from a woman who said she found a dead cat that looked just like Felix in her garage in March.  Obviously she doesn’t have the cat anymore so I can’t confirm one way or another.  She swears this cat looked just like Felix but many people have said that about many cats in the last year…and they are not wrong. 

However, the cat I saw a couple weeks ago was clearly not the one who died in this woman’s garage.  My trainer mentioned a couple nights ago that she saw a cat that could be mine just a few nights ago behind the gym.  So my hopes are still high. 
 
Another pretty exciting thing for me has been starting to take care of other areas of my health.  Sorry for the overshare, but hey, that's what a blog is for!  I have a new doctor and one of the first things she did was take me off Metformin (which I was taking for PCOS) and put me back on the Pill instead.  This makes me happy for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the Pill is a LOT smaller than Metformin.  You probably think the size of a pill makes no difference but let me tell you, for me it does.    Taking my meds every day is like a meal in and of itself.  Because of my sleeve and the number of pills I take, I am completely full by the time I have finished taking them all.

If you saw my morning pill-taking routine, you’d swear I am an 80 year old woman on the verge of death with only medicine keeping her alive.  I’ve got one of those ridiculous plastic daily pill dispensers and if I don’t use it, I sometimes forget to take my vitamins.  I have 8 different medications I take every single day….almost all of them are vitamin supplements.  Annoyingly, the FDA is so messed up that the 5mg Folic Acid tiny tiny tiny pill I used to take in Canada is not available in the US.  Since I moved to the States, I have to take 5 giant 1mg Folic Acid pills every day (which are ¾ sugar)…so it’s actually 15 pills I need to take every day. 

So replacing one very large pill with one very small pill is reason to be slightly excited.

On that note, I’m off to the Corporate Challenge!  Wish me luck…

 

Random Stuff:

·        I hate the word “Scranton”.  I don’t want to say it or hear someone else say it.  Like nails on a chalkboard.

·        I love original art.  I bought my first piece of original art on a trip to NYC when I was in high school from a guy on the street who painted street scenes.   The piece I want to acquire next is called “Dare to be Me” and as soon as I saw it, I knew it would provide a source of strength and inspiration for me to keep going with this "journey" I’m on. 

·        I’m not a huge fan of chocolate.  I like it, but I’d rather eat something caramel-y, nutty, salty or fruit-y than chocolate.  And I’d pick vanilla over chocolate any day of the week.

·        If I do eat chocolate, my fave chocolate bar is the Barcelona bar from Vosges.  Sea salt, almonds and dark chocolate…..so simple but amazing, and it reminds me of my first trip to Las Vegas ‘cos that’s where I discovered it.  So even though I can get it at Wegmans, there’s always something slightly exciting about getting one.

·        I am also excessively fond of Hedonist chocolates here in Rochester.  Their chocolates are so beautiful and delicious.  There’s something very special about choosing a box of 30 yourself.  Then when you get them home, you don’t want to eat them because they are just so beautiful to look at…like a collective work of many tiny pieces of art.

·        Cookies are my kryptonite.  I can’t keep cookies in the house or I’ll eat all the cookies until they’re gone.  And then I will immediately want some more.  So these days I try to pretend cookies don’t exist.  I do not go down the cookie aisle in the grocery store and I curse co-workers who bring cookies to work.

·        We never had traditional birthday cake while I was growing up.  My brother isn’t a fan of cake so my mom always made him chocolate pie for his birthday.  I love trifle so I always had a birthday trifle.