525,600 minutes.
In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? Okay, if that song isn’t living RENT free in your head at this point, I’ve completely failed my main objective today. iTS been a year on this journey (I was supposed to sit and write this a week ago) with semaglutide. How do I measure a year? I’ve lost 70 pounds. I’ve lowered my blood pressure. I’ve lowered my cholesterol. Honestly, my full panel of lab work has improved. Is that how I will measure my year? Surely I have something else to show for my time. I have more dogs than I did a year ago (10/10 do NOT recommend). I have a new car since last year (I don’t really care about that, I don’t think.) My mom and I started a side-gig soap business since last year (I do recommend picking some up). I wrote a lot of donation checks for community nonprofits (that’s worth something), but I rarely spend the time seeing the impact the cause because I’m too busy worrying about the next thing (that’s a little disheartening, I suppose). In most ways, I feel like nothing has changed at all. The years may be fleeting, but everything stands still. Is that possible? Short answer: Yes, if you refuse to heal from your past. Another year has passed and I still can be brought right back to 20 years ago with the simplest number. 254. 254 has been significant since I was about 20 years old. It’s how much I weighed at the time. It’s what my scale said again now. Back then, I had recently been kicked out of college and subsequently finished cosmetology school. I was in Owensboro living back at my mom’s house after a short stint in Lexington. I was a depressed, never-been-kissed, obese kid/adult still trying to be accepted by my Dad who openly disliked fat people and was living his new dream with his mistress-turned-second wife. (You can always tell a kid divorce wasn’t about them, but unless you’ve sat in your dad’s lap at 8 years old when he tells you he’s only sticking around because you’re too young to leave–you’ll always have an odd sense of responsibility for something you couldn’t control. Especially when he left the week you got your driver’s license.) I was sitting at El Toribio’s with a marg and some queso when he decided he was sending me to Weight Watchers with his new wife. I can’t decide if I was mad or grateful he was showing an interest. Whatever I felt was quickly morphed into panic as I didn’t want to tell my mom I was going to weekly meetings with her replacement. How awkward. So… I just didn’t tell her. For months. I weighed in at that first meeting at 254 pounds. In a room of middle-aged women who wanted to obsessively talk about food while all I wanted to do was crawl in a hole and DIE. I didn’t die. I was successful as long as I obsessed over food–because that’s what counting points makes you do. But then it came back when I tried to live life without the database (still printed books way back then). So maybe it doesn’t feel like much has changed in a year. Maybe my life looks relatively similar with a lot of the childhood and early adult trauma I refuse to work through. But it’s safe to say, I think about food a lot less than I did the other 39 years, so I guess I’ll use that as an increment of measurement today. 525,600 minutes. 70 pounds lighter with the same amount of sass and sarcasm. Cheers, Kalin
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2024
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