3 Years Later

This was me three years ago. I'm smiling on the outside, but inside I was crying, maybe even screaming because I was so unhappy with myself.


Three years ago today, I was wheeled into surgery believing that I was going to die on the table. When you weigh 384 pounds, you don't have much hope that you will go on living.

Who knew how much my life would change? I have my life back now. I broke out of a body that was my prison. I'm able to do things that I never dreamed my body could. I can run and wrestle with my girls.

While life has really been kicking me in the butt, lately, I realize that I'm still better off than I've ever been in my life. I have so much to be thankful for.

The costume I wore last night to a party.

Moving On

I've been officially divorced for just over a week. Things are starting to feel better as far as being on my own goes. The panic has begun to subside ever so slightly. I can't believe there could be any more tears left in this body. Do they ever stop? I absolutely hate my emotions, or at least hate showing them to others.

I'm putting together a plan that will hopefully allow me to keep my house and get Mr. Sign's name off of the mortgage. I never dreamed that I would be so set financially one minute and so destitute the next. How does that happen? Michigan's economy sucks!

A friend made a point about how I view myself. Honestly, I still see only flaws when I look in the mirror. I see the remnants of disregarding myself emotionally and physically. A life spent not giving a crap about what I was doing to myself by ignoring my own basic needs. So, every day, I make a point to try and see something good about myself. It's a struggle.

My weight has stabilized at close to my lowest weight. I still make sure that I get all the protein in that I need to. I eat pretty much what I want but still in very small quantities. Gaining weight still petrifies me.

My dating life is making me insane. This could be because the fat girl in my head just won't die. She yells at me that I'm just not good enough for anyone. She taunts me and tells me that people are snickering behind my back. She doesn't allow me much happiness.

My life feels like it's on hold right now. It seems like I'm waiting for something but I have no idea what it is. I hope it's a good surprise because I'm at the point that I'm not sure I can handle many more bumps. Now, where's my helmet?

It's Over, or So I Thought

Mr. Sign and I went back to court today and I wasn't exactly sure that the mean judge was going to ok our divorce. She made me sit on the witness stand and answer questions. It felt strange to say that there was a breakdown of my marriage with irreconcilable differences. It was hard because another couple that was divorcing after us was in the courtroom listening. The husband was a big burly guy and he cried the entire time I was answering questions. It was all I could do to keep myself together as the judge agreed to the terms of our divorce. I was then taken into a small room to watch the clerk stamp all the paperwork with my freedom ingrained in it's pages.

I thought I had worked through all my thoughts and feelings on this subject. More emotions have poured out of me in the last year than have ever come out in the entirety of my life. I was feeling quite self assured that life would be good for me and my girls. Even after Mr. Sign lost his job and stopped giving me support (1/2 my income), I still had a pretty good attitude. I was determined to make it no matter what. I kept it together for my girls' sake.

Today after court I decided to race the thunderstorm and get my yard mowed and put some flower beds to sleep for the winter. I felt pretty good about what I'd done. The pork roast I had in the oven smelled heavenly as I came in from my chores. Mr. Sign and the girls and I had a wonderful dinner together that was a little more quiet than I had hoped. I thought maybe there would be a little reminiscing and even laughter.

After dinner Mr. Sign waited to take #1 to college visitation night at school. Sitting there looking at him made me have fits of sheer panic and terror about every detail of my life. I was worried about money, my girls' well being and my own loneliness and desolation. I'm feeling like I'll never be loved again by a man and that I'll spend the rest of my life completely alone. I sat and cried harder than I've cried. I know I scared my daughters. The youngest gave me a big hug and a kiss. She didn't say anything. That hug meant more to me than any other I've received.

The flood of emotions can stop at any time. I was sure I would make this look easy. As I sit here listening to the wind howl, I'm reminded that no matter what happens now, it's all up to me.

Worries

My life has become one worry after another. This week, I found myself in such an uptight state, that I think I've actually developed an ulcer. I mean, I'm worrying about some ridiculous things, like why my hair is always a mess or why can't someone besides me clean the cat boxes. Most of my concerns have come from financial woes. I hate not being in control of my destiny. One strange phenomenon I've noticed about being single is that if I put money in the bank, it's actually still there when I check on it. There is no one but me to spend it. That is definitely a bonus.

Because Mr. Sign and I share custody of the girls, I spend a lot of time alone now. I've never been alone for more than a day at a time in my entire life. I spent every minute that I could with my girls, being a stay at home mom for 10 years and then being as actively involved in their school as humanly possible. It's so strange to not know now what they are doing every minute and especially weird to have to entertain myself. I ride my bike 20 miles a day and still work out every morning. My house has never been cleaner.

I had moments this week where I actually questioned my decision to become single. I thought about how charmed my life had been. I had everything I needed including wonderful kids, a great house and car, awesome health and a husband who loved me. I'm the one who decided to put the fairy tale to an end. Was I out of my mind? Nah, I couldn't live my life in a lie. While I reflect on the time I spent as a married person, I realize that I had many good years and I don't regret any of them. But, I needed to look toward the future and my own happiness instead of the happiness of everyone around me. It was time for me to take care of me. If all goes well, I will officially be divorced on Tuesday, October 6, 2009. I'll have a little piece of paper that will end 22 years of togetherness.

Trust me when I tell you how weird it is to date. It's been 22 years since I had the privilege of worrying about what I'm going to wear, where we are going, who's going to pay and what are we going to talk about. I do admit to loving the butterflies when I first meet someone. I've had excellent responses from almost all of my dates. Most of them I have met on line and they have all been just what they portrayed themselves to be.

One guy in particular had such a great introduction message that I couldn't resist. I ended up adding to his story line and we went back and forth with this whole scenario for almost a month. Neither of us had said anything real in that time but decided that we should meet. So, I met him at a swanky bar downtown that I'd never been to. It was comical that we sat in a horseshoe shaped booth at opposite sides. He asked if he would recognize any of my sign work. I told him that we do all the directional signs for one of the local hospitals. He asked me if I knew "stepdad's name here". I said that I might know him a little bit. I asked him how they were acquainted. He said, "I was the engineering supervisor for the hospital project and worked with "stepdad's name here" and thought he was such a great guy. I yelled out, "You are (fill in guy's name here)!" He wondered how I knew his full name since we hadn't swapped surnames. Come to find out, he and I had talked many times on the phone and had emailed when he ordered signs, but had never met. Anyway, as the night, the loud band and our drinking progressed, we got closer and closer in the booth. We discussed the fact that we had both been married almost 20 years each and had only "we" stories. I still can't talk about anything without saying we, as in we did this and we went there. We decided it was time for us both to make some "me" stories. After the night ended with me going in for the hug, he messaged me that we had just made a "we" story. I retorted that at least it wasn't a "wee" story.

So, we have had several dates since. We both decided to move slowly. I'm not so sure now that I want to move as slowly as him, but he's worth waiting for. The fat girl in me worries about my weight, extra skin and low self confidence when it comes to him. He's very physically fit and downright thin. My brain tells me that he's going to reject me and throw me back to the wolves. I've told him several things about myself that would send most men screaming and yet he's still hanging around. I hold my breath every day that he still wants to see me. I love the butterflies and hate them at the same time. I'm learning to enjoy the ride, be it a slow one when I'm used to flying down that roller coaster. Maybe slower really is better. Hmmmm...

Four Years!!

You may have noticed that I've been blogging a bit again as of late. Quite honestly, I've missed putting my brain here for the world to see. Blogging has brought me through some of the most introspective times of my life. Without it, I know wholeheartedly that I wouldn't be where I am today, a nearly divorced, much healthier single mother of two.

Four years ago I was in a terrible place, both mentally and physically. I weighed nearly 400 pounds and knew that my marriage was definitely on the rocks. At that time, Mr. Sign had decided to go back to school which left me with oodles of time on my hands at night. So, I picked up the laptop and started playing on line Scrabble. I tired of that and somehow stumbled onto someone's blog. I read it with trepidation, feeling like I was reading someone's diary and shouldn't have been. I was elated to see that people had left comments on the blog. It took me about a week to get up the courage to try my own hand at writing a blog. The trick was finding anyone who cared to read this crap. Writing was titillating for me and I was excited to have an outlet for my brain waves.

Blogging gave me the strength to realize that I was trapped in a body that I had all but abandoned. Blogging allowed me to see just how completely unhappy I made myself. I hated that body because it held me back from life and all the things I wanted to do, but was physically unable to do. I couldn't run and play with my daughters because I could barely get my own butt out of a chair by myself. I felt terrible for the time I had wasted being fat. Don't get me wrong. I was an active fat person, at least as active as I could be at that weight. I knew people could call me fat, but I would never allow them to call me lazy.

Blogging also brought about a huge revelation for me. It was here that I was able to divulge for the first time, the abuse I had suffered as a child. I spent most of my life trying to block out memories but found that they surfaced at the most inopportune moments. I decided it was time to face facts and get it into the open. I'm still dealing with all of this and the effects it's had on me.

So, four years of my life are here on this blog, and what a four years it's been. I've been up, down, kicked around, but I'm still plugging away. Every day I wonder what life has in store for me. Sometimes I miss monotony. But, man, am I having fun!

Flash 55, Take 58

Flood waters came washing over her
as panic took control. How was she going
to get out of this one?

She felt the tide pull as her hair floated around her face.
She struggled to come to the top. She was drowning.

A knock on the door followed by, "Mom, get out of the bathroom!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are interested in attempting to write a 55, you
can visit here to learn about it.
If you do one, go tell G-Man that you did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting Stronger

Once again, my absence from the blog world was by choice as I wasn't sure I wanted to share what's been going on in my life. But, I felt the need to put something here.

As I said in the previous post, I was in a relationship that got kind of serious. I had led myself to believe that I wasn't as attached as he was. Something changed in our relationship. I saw that he was broken and I tried to fix him. I suppose I try to fix everything. That's what I do, only he didn't want to be fixed. So, even though I knew we were completely wrong for each other and needed to split, the end still hurt beyond belief.

I picked myself up and decided to jump full force back into the dating world and just have fun with it, meeting some incredible people. Dating is really fun! It's very strange for me to have so many suitors. I still have a hard time believing that someone would want to spend time with me, but it's so nice to be out living life.

There have been some glitches on the divorce end of things. As soon as Mr. Sign signed the settlement papers, he lost his job due to downsizing. What this means for me is that I now make more money than he does and I may have to pay him child support. This was a real kick in the pants for me but I'm a survivor! I will prevail! Things monetarily have been very tough without his support for the girls. Luckily, I was able to save some money and have been living on that for the past couple of months. I'm in panic mode about it now as those funds have dried up. We now have a new court date of October 6th and if all the paperwork goes through, a little piece of paper will end 22 years of my life and tell me that I'm free.

I think I need to add some of the fun I've had recently and what fun I've had!

Want S'More(s)?

Pole dancing with my cousin (she is on the left)

One night #1 and a few friends decided to go sightseeing in our city. We ran across this mobile cow and Udder Chaos ensued (see below).

Funniest part of the night!

Me and my momma always dress alike. Not really, but she bought me this shirt.

My best friend, our friend from high school, whom we hadn't seen in 20 years
(visiting from China) and me.

The crew on my two best friends' (the other blondes) 40th birthdays (taken last weekend)

My girls

Getting our grove on!!

So, my weight is back in check and I'm growing stronger every day, both physically and mentally. I'm still exercising like a crazy person, working out every morning and then riding my bike 20 miles 5 nights a week. I've worked too hard to go back to my old habits. Still working on loving myself and the person within. I am a work in progress, but who isn't?