Friday, December 16, 2011

Hard to Say Goodbye...2011

It's always this time of year that I hunker down to write New Year's resolutions.  About three years ago I stopped doing that and instead began doing a "Best/Worst of" list of the year where I would list what was good about the year and what was awful.  This year though I didn't want to do it anymore.  I didn't want to dream of what I could do better, what I had accomplished in the space of 365 days, or what I had failed at as another 12 months had passed me by.  My life is so much bigger than that and so much more rich than a list of anything can possibly express.

For this new year I want to simply make the most of it and use the time to reflect on all the years before it.  This  is a very big year to me and it wasn't supposed to be so but over the years it just kept building in momentum until I'm standing at the precipice of something much bigger than me.  I've gained a peek at God's path for me and it feels so...what's the word I want to use...sometimes enlightening, sometimes justified, and sometimes overwhelming.  I have learned a whole lot about myself in the short span of time called a year, a blip in the yawning distance of eternity.  I have given myself a hard honest look as a human being, not as a black or biracial woman, not as a sister, or a daughter, a niece, a cousin, a nurse, an aunt, or a friend.  I examined myself as I saw me and rationalized with my own expectations and found myself here, at the beginning of a new chapter long over due.

My father's illegitimate son found my Facebook page and reached out to me.  It was the first time I ever called into question my decision not to know him.  If I was being fair to him for placing upon his head his parent's crimes against me and my life and made the first revelation about my character in the two page letter I wrote him back.  His response was the first acceptable closure I got in my life.  I have to move on and I don't have to have approval from those that know me or those that don't, it's not about my father or the woman he slept with,    it is about me.  We will never be siblings through no fault of my own and I am perfectly content with that.  Whether his life is good or bad I have no control over that nor do I wish to have it.

Another thing happened among a thousand.  I stopped making the people in my life saints and accepted, dead or alive that we are only human.  It was a change for me because along with the elevated pedestal I put my family on, particularly those in heaven, came an overwhelming guilt for not giving MORE of myself to them while they were alive.  I don't owe my life or happiness to anyone.  I can't blame the lack thereof on anyone either.  As stated earlier, it is hard to say goodbye but by letting go I will finally open myself up to all the rest that I've been missing.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Another year wiser...

So in only a couple of hours I will turn 32 years old.  Thirty-two...wow, as my brother said, I am getting old.  That's okay though, I'm taking everyone with me!  Muhahahahahaha!  Now that I have that out of the way, I can proceed with the blog.

I am scared as hell y'all.  Not so much about the surgery because for some reason since nursing school I have followed Dr. Webb.  I feel very comfortable with him as my surgeon.  It's more what I'm going to do after the surgery to prevent myself from ever coming back this way again.  I never want to be this big again.  I am absolutely miserable in my skin!  Bills keep climbing, I can't catch a break, and I just want to focus on this process but the world won't let me.  November is my birth month but I want the day of my surgery to be my burfday...no joke, I will forever celebrate that as my BURFDAY.

If I come begging for clothes you guys have to help me and if you see me eating anything I shouldn't, you don't have to smack me in the back of the head, my stomach's going to do that for me ;-)

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." --Albert Einstein

Night y'all and here's to the big 3-2!

Fat Girl

Monday, October 17, 2011

Rip Van Me

I thought about what I would post all weekend and resolved to post today.  At the end of it all I just decided to write it out.  This week is a week of stress along the lines of weight loss.  I am busting out of all my clothes and feel so damn frumpy but I refuse to buy more clothes.  One, I will soon be throwing away/donating all my clothes anyway at a rapid fire rate.  Two, shopping for clothes depresses me because most clothes in stores don't even fit me.

My depression also makes me unhappy with however I look.  My mother's nephrologist told me I look like a totally different person when I'm not in the hospital.  It's unfortunate I still feel like a troll.  I have patient's tell me I have beautiful skin all the time but to me it looks oily and shiny, and of course there is too much of it.  I alternate from breaking down and relaxing my hair and cutting it all off.  Oh and this is me AFTER Wellbutrin.  I have always thought that I had a healthy dose of self esteem but as I draw closer to the surgery date and anxiety grows about life after weight loss, I'm realizing I have none.  I wonder if I ever really had it or have been coasting through on dumb luck and bravado.

It's like this, the soul searching continues and must delve deeper into who I am and have always been. I am proud of the adult I have grown into but so much of my potential has been stunted by my weight.  I feel lost in my teenage years, swallowed by what I have been fooling myself into thinking were long dead insecurities.  I keep waiting for someone to sort it out for me and give me direction but no sage, wisdom filled, voice from the past has presented itself yet.  In its place are endless hopes for companionship, bitterness about not finding someone that feels I'm the woman of their dreams, and the echoes of yearning for my own children instead of always being the aunt, the cousin, the godmommy to someone else.  I feel as if I've been sleeping for the last 15 years and while I am anticipating the journey, in so many ways, I have a fear of what I'll find once I wake up.  

I am working on being less EMO but utilizing the outlet is already reflecting positively in managing anxiety, stress, and depression.  There will be rainbows after the rain as well as a butt load of puddles.  I just have to deal with it hour by hour, day by day.  My quote for the day is a fave of mine.  "It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Love yourself,
Fat Girl

Monday, October 10, 2011

Coming Out of the Fridge

Today, or rather yesterday, I came clean to my Facebook Friends that I am getting weight loss surgery.  Last week I came clean to my co-workers.  I was met with the usual responses, most give me encouragement and support, some begin suggesting diets that may or may not have been successful for them, some try to scare me.  I am numb to it all.  Not because I can't deal with it but because I have been on this road for so long!  I was a chunky baby and it never got any better.  My grandmother, bless her soul, put me on my first clinician supervised diet when I was 14.  I was 214 pounds then.  I lost 15lbs over the next year with walking with my uncles, her neighbors, and alas even my grandmother, the 5'2" stick swinging virago.  It felt great but was shortly followed by the worst year of my life.  My grandmother's breast cancer returned, if it was ever really gone, my mother moved us to Jacksonville, FL, into a trailer park and every black man within a one mile radius began making passes at me.  While I was only 15, I looked "old enough".  By the time I was molested for the second time in my life, I began eating myself into an asexual state of mind.  I don't think I talk to anyone outside of family who knew me from back then but that woman that was awakening in me died, she was smothered by all the food I was eating.  By the time I arrived in highschool I was more alone than I had ever felt in my life.  I spent all of freshman year sitting alone in the cafeteria or outside on the patio in a dark place, praying for answers.  God sent me good friends, great friends that calmed the beast and I muddled through a lot of personal drama focusing on college and the beautiful life waiting for me after I was done with school.

Only nothing went the way it was supposed to.  I went to college and struggled to work (in order to pay for the classes) and make it to the full time schedule of classes.  I never learned to relate to the vapid youth I took classes with.  I didn't understand them and they didn't understand me.  I dropped out and went to work at Walmart full time. The following year I got the job at Citibank and was fooled into the idea I didn't need college, that I could do this for a while and publish a few books by the time I was 30 and I would be alright.  Sit down job plus fat friends who love to eat plus credit cards and 90% of your income to spend on food and travel only packed on the pounds.  I looked into the Roux-N-Y for the first time at 22.  I was 377lbs at weigh in with a doctor doing the surgery in Celebration, FL.  My brother Jeffrey was against me having the surgery because he knew so little about it and he was afraid for me going under the knife.  For the first time my brothers expressed love for me...within months of this my brother was brutally murdered.  I felt it was a sign from God for a long time that I was not meant to have the surgery.

It's been almost a decade since.  I have still continued to view myself as an asexual person, I have somehow found myself taking care of my disabled mother, watching over my baby brother, and taking on the burden of my new nephew, who is not himself a burden but his well being and happiness weighs heavy on my mind.  I digress.

I quit Citibank after they began moving me towards selling to elderly or confused people to make a paycheck.  I worked at Washington Mutual, my dream job, all the OT I wanted, a position of seniority, and a false calm. The mortgage portion of the company went belly up after 2 years and my eyes were suddenly open to the struggles of the working class my ancestors had struggled through my whole life.  A long dormant dream came to mind and caught fire then.  I had wanted to be a nurse but my low self confidence and fear of math had stopped me.  I felt I owed my baby brother something to look up to though and my mother something to be proud of.  I began taking prerequisites for it and signed up for MRC, a metabolic diet plan that cost a fortune but WORKS.  I went from 368 to 299.  It was the best thing that ever happened to me and I began to feel like a woman again.  It gave me the confidence to pull through school and get my current job...then I became sick.  Two years ago, I lost my right kidney to the protein overload of the diet I had been on.  I don't blame the company, I blame myself.  I went hard...too hard.

So that leads up to my current situation.  I am back up to 375, all the health problems I had at 22 and this weight are back as well as some new ones now that I am an RN that abuses my body as an occupational hazard AND my diabetes type II has set in.  Exercise doesn't seem to work and with my only workout partner I feel like I'm actually hurting myself.  My stress is way higher than it was back then with my family looking at me as "the responsible decision maker".  My uncle, with whom I had a strained relationship at best because of issues he had with me being biracial, died in a freak accident in February, my aunt was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, and lastly my mother began dialysis.  I began to eat again and the weight I had staved off at 320-330 suddenly spun out of control in response.  That leads me here, making a decision to drastically change my life.

I want this more than anything right now.  I see it as an escape from floor nursing.  I see it as a way to be a woman again, not just a counselor, support system, or martyr for her family.  I see it as an escape from the health problems that plague my mother, and finally I just see it as freedom.  I want this and even more important, I deserve it.  This is not a spur of the moment decision but rather a painfully life long destination I am tired of visiting.  I leave you with this quote, "If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things." --Albert Einstein

Goal On,
Fat Girl

Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Cost of Living...

I just needed a break today.  I am SO SICK OF HEALTHCARE and the more obese I have become the more obsessed I am forced to become with it.  It's bad enough I'm a nurse and for at least 3 days a week I listen to my unfortunate senior population at the hospital and all the sacrifices they have to make to make ends meet.  Add to it the fact that I come home to a sick mother transitioning into dialysis.  Recently, in pursuit of my surgery I have had to reacquaint myself with healthcare.  I went from in August having an OTC allergy medication to being on Lisinopril, Dulera, Wellbutrin, Janumet, and Singulair.  Really?  I went t having no doctor to seeing three and having an appointment with one or the other at least once a week until the end of the year.  People go to their doctor to make themselves feel better but instead I feel more sick.  My vertical sleeve is scheduled for end of February, first of March.  I am itching for it to be next week just so I can stop being a walking target for the system.  I hate bashing on my profession but I am sick to death of being made to feel I need a pill for every moment of my life, that I am to sick to breathe much less live without a referral or physician supervision!  In June of next year I am going on a cruise and I am going to ride the hell out of some roller coasters.  Sounds really lame but this is what I keep my focus on right now so I don't just shut down.

I know it is going to get better I am just low on financial and spiritual resources right now.  So, on that note I bid thee goodnight and pass on this quote. "So many people spend their health gaining wealth and then must spend their wealth regaining health." ---A.J. Reb Materi

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

You're not that funny

I don't know if I can or will write a blog everyday.  I might, we will have to see.  I wasn't going to write today actually.  A few things prompted the post.  First, I wanted to clear up that while I am 375lbs and morbidly obese, and while I am currently pursuing weight loss surgery, this is NOT a blog about that.  I have found early on in my life that writing helps me clear my head and I am good at it.  Not in the technical sense, I will probably never get paid for it but I enjoy writing and I have found people enjoy reading what I write, for the most part.  This is just part of the plan, to write on what's going on in my life rather than picking up a sandwich or a slice of pizza.  I could simply buy a journal I know but something about others reading it make me feel I am heard.

Secondly, I had my psych evaluation for my vertical sleeve surgery.  It's mostly just one more hurdle to get over but the counselor had a good spirit about her.  I was more honest with her than I have been with anyone in a long time and I was shocked in a way.  I don't know if it was simply her open spirit, or my soul was crying out for a cleaning, or just maybe this surgery is so life changing it inspired me to reveal more of the person I'm leaving behind.  Regardless I found myself talking to her about the stress I'm under and for the life of me I can't remember what, but while I was telling her some truly horrific detail of the stress behind me being overweight I laughed.  The woman sat back and sort of blinked with a blank expression and then she began to nod, saying that I had a wonderfully resilient personality, that despite all that I have been through I can still laugh.  I get this reaction a lot so I think I will clarify to those that don't know me.

I am not a negative person at all that throws herself pity parties.  I am generally not a dark person either and I do enjoy laughing but I want to be clear, I do not think everything is funny.  It is a trait I inherited from both my mother and my father, this coping mechanism of "laughing" things off, like some people would shrug things off.  Often times I cling desperately to the humor of situations just to get through them.  I would not say I am jovial and at any given moment I am much closer to tears rather than laughter.  Crying in public, or throwing a grown woman temper tantrum, hell, cursing someone out, all of it, are socially unacceptable where as laughter is not.  I am sure there are days when I look as if somethings wrong because I'm not laughing/smiling.  I am also sure as I lose weight and become more comfortable in my skin I will do both less but if you know me, I ask that you take it as a compliment.  I simply trust you enough to relax my guard.

Any way, I'm still working on the blog, more changes to come.  I will leave you with a word from Ethel Barrymore that I found appropriate to this post.  "You grow up the day you have your first real laugh--at yourself."

Monday, September 19, 2011

In the beginning...

I started a blog eight years ago with my friend and just never kept it up.  I restarted one four years ago on my MySpace account and really missed it.  After I stopped updating it I found that there were more people than I thought reading it.  Keeping that in mind I have decided, in one of the most profound decisions of my life, I should track my journey both emotionally and physically with a blog site, not named for a self depreciating slur but as a nod to my deceased brother Jeffrey who lovingly referred to me as "Fat Girl".

 So, most of you already know me if you are reading this or at least some version of me.  I will try my best not to be confusing or vague and would appreciate feedback, be it positive or negative.

I am a 31 year old bi-racial single female from the glorious state of Florida.  In 2008, I graduated with an associate degree of nursing from a state college and began working as a registered nurse.  I work at an HCA hospital in Jacksonville on a Med-Surg/Oncology floor where I have been doing my time until my director feels like allowing me the privilege of getting chemo certified.  My ultimate goal is to become an Oncology nurse but even by my own admission I still have many miles to go.  I am painfully introverted and find it much easier to bare my soul to the internet and social networking  sites where my words are immortalized forever than have a deep and meaningful conversation with the people of my life.  Hopefully as I proceed with my blogging it will become apparent to me why that is or at least more apparent to some of you.