The Frazzled Scribe

Pre-Surgery Weight: 327
Current Weight: I don’t wanna talk about it
Weight lost: Don’t go there

I’ve hit my first major stall and I must admit it’s having an affect on my psyche. Mind you, I’ve hit some mini-stalls before, although I wonder to myself whether those were, in fact stalls, or just the product of me weighing myself too much. At any rate, this one is real. The scale is being stubborn. It will not budge no matter how much I beg, plead, cry, or throw temper tantrums. Anyone who has been through this experience before knows that it causes you to start to analyze (and I’d argue over-analyze) everything you do and eat, looking for something…ANYTHING we can change to get the loss going again.

Compounding this difficult time for me is the fact that my life stability seems to be crumbling like dry rotted plaster around me. If I were on the outside looking in, perhaps I could find some divine humor in the peculiar situation that is my life, but right now it’s very not funny. I made the mistake of depending on child support to carry me through then month and again I was disappointed. This time at least I had good reason to think it would come through. It had for five whole months during which I suspiciously snatched the checks out of the mailbox and cashed them as soon as possible. This month, I thought, I can relax a bit. The check will come…everything will be ok. I paid some other bills that I would not have normally paid and put my energy into having faith. Well…that was a mistake. The check came…and it was $17. So now not only am I broke but my checks are bouncing like rubber all around the city. You live, you learn, you move on I suppose.

But I don’t want that to be the focus of this whole post. I refuse to dedicate a whole post to my negative feelings. So let’s talk for a moment about a few good things going on.

First and foremost, I am trying to keep active. This isn’t easy for several reasons. I love working out…getting the motivation to go work out is another matter entirely. Once I’m there I really get into it though. I have found that I can run on the treadmill at 4.5 miles per hour for 10 minutes! When I first started out I was walking at 3.0 and could not run, so I’m very pleased with that progress. Also, my muscle mass is increasing as evidenced by the fact that I do NOT float in the pool anymore. I sink right down to the bottom. Well, most of me anyway.

And I can walk among the normal without attracting too much attention. I traveled to Chicago for the Lutheran Communicators Conference this past week and was able to sit at a large table full of people each night and eat a “me-size” meal without attracting too much attention. I met a good friend there named Cynta, who lives in Pennsylvania. We hung out together a lot during the conference and commiserated as our respective flights were pushed further and further back on our last day there.

And fall is coming. I’m one that really appreciates the change in seasons. It’s necessary, I think, to balance things out. Much as I LOVE summer…it’s time for it to end. It’s time for some cooler weather. It’s time for it to get dark earlier, to draw people back into their houses and into their families. It’s time to bake apples and roast beef. It’s time to do homework with my children and enjoy eight hours of sleep a night. I’m looking forward to all that and of course the strict schedule that comes along with it. I need to feel reigned in especially during this time when I feel unsuccessful at so many things. It’ll be good to just have some change.