I have always been fat, i say fat because its a more friendly term that morbidly obese- really fat people are almost always the opposite of morbid, years of coping with low self esteem and chronic fear of rejection have taught us to compensate for our many unappealing layers by being funny and overall jovial creatures. Eventually one become accustomed to ones rotund nature, and develops many walls to help me ignore the fact of my body, only rarely acknowledging the scary facts about my unhealthy self. One of those rare occasions happened just before leaving work on the 22nd of december for an extended holiday vacation. On the way out the door looking forward to no work between the Christmas and new year holidays, I decided to hop on the industrial scale used for weighing pallets of books just to see. The number hit struck me like a mac truck, a 491 lb. mac truck to be exact.

The number weighed on my (pun definitely intended) over the holiday. I spent much of the week alone, thinking and mulling over the past that lead to where I am today. I hit a pretty dark place, but as the new year struck I began to catch a feeling (no not the swine flu kind of feeling) that I rarely get at beginnings like a new year. For once I saw hope that I could change who i am, that there is a new year, a new decade to become who I want to be.

It has been said that one rarely changes until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of changing. Only time will tell if i have finally come to that point, but I have hope for the future, and faith in myself to a different degree than I ever have in the past.

Almost as a Token to affirm my hope for the new year, i took up the scales once more as i returned to work and in shock and surprise I found that the numbers had changes, 491 had become 484. The impossible felt a little more possible, and weight on my shoulders felt a little lighter (pun, once again intended).


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