Holla!

Life is pretty good. What can I say. Weight-wise, I bounce around the same 5-10 lbs. I can't complain. I've been playing tennis like a mad woman up until I hurt my knee and had to take a month off. I recently got back on the courts and was amazed how much my game had suffered. I will try to never have to do that again.

I am thisclose to being ready for plastics. 2010 will be the year, I think. Probably next October. The first few months I am going to focus on getting as fit as possible as I want the best results possible. I found this awesome kickboxing school. It's about a 20 minute drive away though... I will give it a whirl and hope that I won't mind the trip.

Even after all this time, I sometimes don't see myself as I truly am. Sometimes I think I am fat. Crazy, ain't it.

Still Here

The past few months have been interesting. I had my first major sports injury. I foolishly played tennis one night on a slick court. Dumb, I know, but in my defense, my friend Ana and I had been playing for a good hour and a half and then it started to mist. As soon as it did, we both said "five more minutes", she hit the ball to me, I planted my foot on the line and it slipped. Long story, short no major damage, but I have six weeks of physical therapy to look forward to and possibly some shots in my knee.

Overall, I am doing well. Playing tennis so much as increased my muscle which has been awesome. Even though my weight can still fluctuate, my clothes still fit and even are starting to get the slightest bit loose. I am planning on seeing my friend, Kim's, plastic surgeon before the end of the year, mostly for a consult. I really just want an idea of what I have to look forward to and to mostly set some expectations. My excess skin is starting to bother me more and more, mostly my arms and thighs. I hate being pear shaped. I look completely normal from the waist up, but then the flab on my thighs give things away. It's weird, some days I think I am fat, but then when I see my reflection compared to "normal" people, I still surprise myself. Even after all this time, there is still that disconnect.

Three Years

Can you believe it? Wow. It's hard to even imagine what my life would be like had I not had surgery. I don't think I would be dead, I'd probably be 600+ lbs and largely homebound. I wouldn't be working at my current job (which I enjoy), I wouldn't be playing tennis (which I love) and most likely, I'd be still quite miserable.

A quick rundown of the numbers, I started at 516.6 lbs, lost roughly 285 down to the low 230's and now I bounce around within 10 lbs of that. I am thrilled with my loss! I have lost 114% of what Dr. Marchesini wanted me to lose! I call that a success. I have A LOT of excess skin, but besides that, I look normal...who would have ever thunk it! I can wear a 10/12 on top and a 16/18 on bottom. The vast amounts of excess skin prevent me from getting smaller on the bottom, but I'm mostly cool with it since I'm almost 6' tall.

I am so incredibly thankful and grateful for my life right now. It's been a struggle at times, but frankly, it's been pretty kick-ass too! I am about to embark on a fitness program in the hopes of building some strength and getting leaner, mostly for tennis. I don't have a clue how much more weight I will lose, but my primary concern is become a better tennis player.

What can I say, life is good. I LOVE my DS!!!

Heart Matters

We had our first match of the USTA Summer season yesterday. Imagine running around for an hour and a half around a blazing hot concrete slab. It was rough. I mean, it was only 85 or so degrees, but tennis hardcourts radiate heat like a mother! I try not to drink sports drinks as they tend to have too much sugar, but I think I drank 3 by the time I was done. I couldn't help it, it was either that or pass out. My partner and I won, 6-0, 6-1 but the match took longer than normal. Afterwards the rest of my teammates and I went down to Marietta Square for some much needed grub. All in all, a very good day.

I'm starting to think that the extra protein shake might not be enough. We'll see. When I check a few sites, they all have me burning anywhere from 500-800 calories each time I play tennis. Yikes! One measly protein shake ain't gonna make up for that. I've been trying to eat 4 meals instead of 3 and I think I may need to find some good grazing food. I really like Pork Rinds, but they aren't too cool to have at work... or maybe that's just my perception, this is the south after all. I guess I will stop by the grocery store after work and pick up some sunflower seeds at least.

I tried a new marinade with my baked chicken last night and it's not too bad. I have noticed that the powder-based marinades - the ones I need to mix up myself - have much more robust flavors than jar based ones. Good stuff. I happily ate a couple of thighs for lunch today and am looking forward to have one as soon as I get home.

So, Thursday I have an appointment for an echocardiogram. My doc wants to make absolutely sure that my water retention issues are not heart related. Gosh, I remember the last time I had one of those, it had to be around 2002-2003, I honestly can't remember. I must've weighed maybe 450 lbs or so. Wow. I keenly remember the technician/nurse/doctor/whatever having to press really hard to get good images of my heart because I had so many layers of fat on my chest. It was painful and embarrassing. This time it should be different. Unless s/he's trying to get images through my boobs, s/he shouldn't have any issues. The only heart concern I have - and this may be a nonissue - is my relatively low heart rate, at rest it is consistently in the 40-50 beats per minute range. I remember back in 2007 when I went in to have my upper GI and they had me on a heart rate monitor and the alarm would go off every minute or so because my heart rate would fall below 40 bpm. My blood pressure is normal so I think it all just means I'm healthy. I eat fairly well and exercise a lot so I should be okay. We'll certainly see.

Tweaking

I went to the doc in late May and have finally gotten my labs back. All in all, not too horrible. Seems I'm lapsing into anemia again even though I have been consistently taking two Poly-Iron capsules every day, they each have 150mg of elemental iron. I'm on the hunt for a chewable iron that I can add to my arsenal and will probably split up my Poly-Iron into two doses instead of one. This is definitely one of the reasons I've been feeling a little sluggish lately.

The most distressing lab result is my albumin, 3.7. Although it's in the normal range, it's the lowest ever for me and I'm not too happy about it. I'd been doing well doing my 2-3 protein shakes a day and thought that that was my maintenance level. Well, what I didn't factor into my plans was the increase in physical activity and how much I'd need to adjust for it. Right now, I am playing tennis 4-5 times a week and I don't see that changing, if anything, I may be playing more. So the plan right now is to add yet another protein shake a day. Yep, 4 protein shakes a day. The first one before I walk out the door in the morning, another around 10:30 AM, the third around 3-4PM and the last sometime around 9-10 PM. I then usually have 3 meals. I've been doing this for about a week and it seems to work. I feel a lot better, so we'll see how it goes. The weird thing is that my total protein is 7.4 which is well within normal, so I'm not sure what that means.

Speaking of tennis, have I told you lately how much I love it! I freakin' love it. Yesterday, I went to Friday morning drills for an hour and a half. Now, typically they have three courts which are usually divided based on skill level and I consider myself a beginner. Well, that morning there wasn't enough people to warrant 3 courts so everyone was on two. As soon as I noticed, I was nearly petrified. I mean, I've been swimming happily in the kiddie pool, now I felt like I was being tossed in the deep end. It was incredibly intimidating, but I jumped right in and within 15-20 mins, I definitely felt like I could hang. It was the most awesome feeling I've had in a while. The pace was much quicker, the players were so much better, but I was right there in it! I played my butt off and of course, made mistakes but I wasn't categorically worse. It was sooooo cool. The best part, the absolute best part was when a couple of people came up to me afterward and said I had great hand/eye coordination and asked if I ever wanted to go out and hit to give them a call. That has never happened to me before. It felt awesome. It was just so cool. I feel so much more motivated to improve my game. A big test for me comes later this summer when there is a big tennis tournament. I'm going to go out of my comfort zone and find a partner and enter in. I don't know how well I will fare, but I think it'll be good to test myself. I'm excited.

Getting close....

So, I'm closing in on three years. Amazing. It seems like such a long, long time ago. I can barely believe it. I'm bouncing around in the 240-250 range lately, which is alright. I am still prone to retain water like a mad woman when I don't get my protein in and I know exactly why the scale jumps up when it does. I still struggle with extremes. I often find myself oscillating between being hyper-vigilant and being very lax. Moderation, it seems, is quite elusive for me. It seems as though I just need to find the right balance and fully embrace who I am and what my needs are now AND fully release who I was, my old fears and concerns. I am a work in progress.

I have found, though, that I will NOT be one to take Flagyl on a maintenance level. I tried it for a couple of weeks, and honestly, it was so awesome. I could eat horribly and not have gas or poop problems.....but then, the nightmare began. I'm one of the lucky few who has a delicate gut, meaning I have to have a plethora of intestinal flora or I start having hives, joint pain, fatigue, etc. I had a wicked bout of hives and such severe joint pain in my left elbow, it seriously felt like I broke something. I had to wear a sling for a couple of days, I couldn't move it. Once I ditched the Flagyl and started some serious probiotics, it finally cleared up and I have been hive and pain free since. It took a good two weeks to get things back to normal, but I tell ya, I will never do that again!

Back to the whole moderation/balance thing. What I have been doing lately is staying away from carbs, Monday - Friday and indulging a bit on the weekends. The problem is that the indulging can get a little crazy and I tend to not get all my protein in. Talking to my sister about this she said that I shouldn't look at my weekends like that. It is very reminiscent of my pre-surgery life, where I looked forward to being a carb-induced fog for two days. She said I shouldn't have a deprivation mindset, instead of denying myself all week and gorging on the weekends, I should have that cookie if I want it, or a hamburger with bread, etc if I want it, that way, these little "treats" aren't such a big deal. I won't look at it like all or nothing. I think it makes sense, but it's a little scary to work myself through to that point. Instead of being protein first, I tend to be protein-only, all or nothing!

I am not actively trying to lose any more weight. I could buckle down and lose more, but I'm pretty content where I am. I'm not thrilled, but I'm not disappointed. I lost 285 lbs, that's a lot and what's funny, my excess skin is now started to bother me more and more. Sometimes I see myself and say "man, I have such huge thighs" but I know, most of that is skin. Same thing with my stomach. I honestly, don't have a lot of fat there, I have like a 36 in waist and it would be smaller without the skin. I know when it comes time to seriously start looking into it and working toward it, I will want to lose 25-30 more pounds before I get on the surgery table and that's cool, that makes sense, but I'm not going to be focusing on "weight loss", just maintenance & good health is fine for now.

One of the things that has kept me on a healthy track is that I play a lot of tennis, like 4-5 times a week for as little as an hour to 2.5 hours at a time. I get a good bit of exercise a week AND I also do 45 minutes of an exercise tape 2-4 times a week, especially on days I don't play. I make sure I get my exercise in. I freakin' love tennis, can't get enough of it. I've gotten pretty decent at it, taking lessons and working on things, learning as much as I can. It's so cool to be able to say I play a sport and the coolest thing by far is that my size is an advantage. Finally, being tall works to my benefit!!!

Anyway, I'm slowly working my way back to this blog. I have a couple of things I know I will want to work my way through, one of them being, I am considering therapy with a therapist who is familiar with the issues of post-weight loss surgery folk. I don't feel like I am in a tenuous situation or anything, but I do feel like I need to take some next steps to fully realize the things I want in my life. Right now I feel a little ill-equiped, so I look at it as a good thing!

Alrighty then, time to get to work..

Life Happens....

First, congrats to Tiffany on her engagement! I am thrilled to tears for her! She rocks!

Second, yes, I am still alive. Seems I am liking the living my life thing. I have been happily busy with stuff, from work to family and everything in between. Been playing a lot of tennis lately which has been fun. I actually joined a team (gasp) and our season starts in a couple of weeks so we've been practicing. It feels good to say I play a sport. Who would've thunk it!

Yesterday I bought a size medium unisex t-shirt. How freakin' crazy is that? It is a little snug, but that may just be me being self conscious about it. Incredible. I also bought some size XL unisex athletic pants. Boggles the mind. I'm having to retire my 2XL's which had been baggy, but comfortable, now they are a little too baggy. I'm consistently in 12/14's on top and 16's on the bottom. I can see those 16's slowly transitioning into 14's at some point.

Weight has been steady in the 230's although I think I may tone down the carbs and such and may try to trim down a bit. I've been getting a little frustrated playing tennis when I can't move as fast as I want to. It's funny how tennis is the only thing that makes me want to lose more weight even though I'm pretty content where I am. My motivation is to be a good tennis player and if it means dropping pounds, so be it. I don't have a set weight in mind, I just want to feel agile and lighter on my feet. Not surprisingly, I feel better when I eat better.

My ex-business partner has gone into full on crazy mode. She'd been emailing me regularly since I left and I finally had enough so I basically had to, quite bluntly, shut her down. She did not like it and sent me a crazy email, but I am ignoring her. I can't out manipulate her so my best bet is to ignore at all costs. I next expect her to start trying to get to me through other people, it's just a matter of time. I almost pity her, she's a sad, sad woman. Oh, and get this! She had the nerve to tell me that to truly have nothing to do with her (which I stated emphatically, numerous times) that I should return to her all my shares in the company! Uh....no.

Anyway, besides her, life is pretty awesome. The DS has been a blessing and I just continue to try to find my way through the world.

Sigh

I'm in one of those moods again, the ones where I feel like I'm so done trying to lose weight. We're closing in on 2 1/2 years, I've lost 285 lbs, I feel and look great (not perfect). I'm healthy, a million times happier and have done many of the things I wanted to do "when I lost all the weight". I don't know why I get in these moods, but I think because well, it's been 2 1/2 years, shouldn't I be maintaining? I don't want to diet anymore. All I want to do is just focus on other things besides tracking weight loss. I want to drink my shake in the morning, my shake at night, take my supplements and live my life. 199 and 216 would be nice, but I'm not sure I want to do the work. This morning I weigh like 5 lbs over my lowest and the jeans I bought 6 weeks ago are too big now. It seems I can slowly shrink with little effort. My only problems arise when I don't get my protein in. When that happens, I gain a lot of water weight and as soon as I start getting it in, the weight falls off past my lowest previous weight. I just want to eat like a normal person, play tennis 2-3 times a week and focus on other stuff. I'm not sure 199 or 216 is what I truly want, it's chasing numbers. It would be nice to say I lost 300 lbs and it would be so awesome to see onderland, but maybe I worry about that stuff when it comes to start seriously thinking about plastics. I have so much excess skin that if I had it all removed, I'd easily be the size AND weight that I'd want to end up at. I figure ramping up to plastics would mean several months of getting into the best shape possible, maybe that's when I worry about losing those last 20 lbs or so.

I don't know. Maybe it's time to start really focusing on maintenance instead of weight loss and mostly focusing on other parts of my life. If I just hit my minimums of 150g of protein, 64 oz of sugar free fluid, all my supplements every day plus 2-3 days of tennis a week, then I'm good. I know I'll never be normal, that's what I signed up for when I had this surgery, but I want to be post-DS normal.

I did good, y'know. Not too shabby. Maybe it's time to really start enjoying the success.

Wow

I love my DS. So, as we all know, since Thanksgiving my eating had been crazy, not enough protein, FAR too many carbs, too much sugar, etc., etc. While it was fun, one thing I did notice was how fatigue and sort of listless I was feeling. I still had maybe 100g of protein, still took my supplements and played tennis 1-2 times a week, but I didn't feel like my normal self. I hadn't been weighing daily like I usually did and so the weight started to creep up. Here's the funny thing about my weight gain, it's all water, I never gain fat, in fact over the course of the last 8 weeks, while the scale went up, my clothes fit the same. My lowest weight ever was 231.2 lbs. This past Monday, I topped the scale at 266.0 lbs. That's a weight gain of roughly 35 lbs. Crazy, huh?! This morning, after eating like a good DS-er all week, my weight dropped down to 238.2 lbs. That's a loss of almost 28 lbs in like 5 days. I know you don't gain 35 lbs of fat in 5 weeks and if you never gained it, you can't lose 28 lbs of it in 5 days. I seem to be one of those people who can gain water weight very rapidly. Tuesday-Friday, I peed it all off, seriously, I was going to the bathroom to tinkle, like 10-12 times a day. I had actually anticipated not getting back to where I was til the end of the month, but it seems like I can maybe get there sooner which would be awesome. The DS rocks the box, it's a possibility that after all the water weight is gone, I might have actually dropped a few pounds of fat!

I've been working hard at getting my business started. I've been spending a lot of time talking with future clients, industry experts and contacts, something I didn't do hardly any of when I worked with my old business partner. She was more than happy to relegate me to the sidelines and I was more than content to sit there. At 500+ lbs it's hard to portray confidence. Now that I am close to normal, I don't have much of that anxiety and fear. I do have a ways to go though, but I am aware of it and am working on it. Anyway, I had been in preliminary discussion with a new potential business partner, we've been talking high level and trying to meet regularly to work a few things out. I've had a good 9 years of working at small startups so I know what it's like, he really hasn't and although we're good friends, I don't think I will be business partners with him. Part of it is, he's always late. Always. Now, maybe I'm anal, maybe it's the fact that I grew up with a dad who was in the army and has never been late in his life, maybe it's genetics, I don't know, but I hate tardiness. Hate it - however, I'm not a Nazi about it. I know sometimes, stuff happens, that's life, but for chrissakes, give me a call, let me know you're running late. It's so disrespectful and I don't think he gets that his chronic tardiness is basically saying "my time is more important that yours, Tia" and that just grates on my nerves. I don't think he's intentionally thinking that, but it is what it is.

This is also brings up issues of dependability. I don't truly feel like he's all that dependable. I know he's smart and hard working and persistent, but I don't know that I can trust him to be on time for a meeting with a client, or get things done when we need them to. He's far too laissez-faire for me. I just don't think it'll work out. That is what my gut is telling me and I need to listen to it, even if it means temporarily damaging our friendship. Doing a business together would do infinitely more damage and frankly, I'm not into babysitting right now. I'm not interested in wondering how late he's going to be, wondering if he did what he said he was going to do, etc. Not in the mood right now. Thankfully, nothing has been signed, it's all just talk, so I'll be wrapping it up with him soon.

Today, it's time to run some errands! Woo-hoo! Gonna go for a walk and/or hit some tennis balls, I have a group lesson on Sunday and want to be prepared. Then it's off to the grocery store for my weekly food shopping and I have to get an emergency stash of protein powder since my order from Vitalady won't be here til Friday. After that, it's a little house cleaning, then a few hours of business development stuff, maybe a little database design, then I'm off to a birthday dinner & party for a friend.

Have a good one, y'all!

#600... and it's a doozy!

Believe it or not, this is my 600th post, 600 posts in like 2 1/2 years. Wow. That's a lot of blabbing on my part! Well, it's that time of year and so I have been thinking long and hard about resolutions for 2009. This time around, it's not so much about accomplishing a lot of little things, but I want to focus on making good strides toward living a normal healthy lifestyle where my weight and my surgery and my body issues aren't so present in my day to day life.

I've been back and forth with myself over the last several months about whether or not I am happy where I am weight-wise, whether getting down below 200 is feasible or not, whether hitting a certain number is all that important to me. I think what I have learned from all that is I still have issues with the fear of success. It is by far, the hardest thing for me to overcome, it sucks because I really want to be able to say that I'm done losing weight, but I guess, subconsciously, I am afraid of what that really means. I don't know. This hurdle, by far, is the most important one for me to overcome in 2009.

Having said that, after a very crazy holiday season filled with lots of holiday food of all kinds, it's time to get back on track. I continue to slowly shrink in size (which honestly boggles the mind considering how I've been eating lately) so I know my DS still works. I am going to focus on exercise. I haven't pushed myself lately and I think it's time. I've been playing a fair amount of tennis, but with the sketchy weather lately, it hasn't been consistent. I will be signing up for a gym in January, like the rest of America and will start the exercise portion of the Body for LIFE program. I've done BFL before with good results and I will continue to do tennis 2-3 times a week, mostly Sunday afternoon and Monday evenings.

My nutritional requirements haven't changed. Still need to get in at least 2 protein shakes a day, preferably three. Still need to take my supplements, still need to greatly limit the carbs and dairy in my diet. On this front, the only thing I need to improve is to maintain consistency and to basically expand my horizons a little bit and be a little more adventurous with my food. Eating the same things over and over again is convenient, but makes it easy to get off track when boredom sets in. I have to learn that not all veggies are evil. :)

Long story short, yes, the ultimate goal is to see onederland. I don't know when, I'm not putting a timetable on it, but that's the goal. I hope to get pretty damn close within the first 12 weeks.

I made great strides in 2008 in being more social, the biggest thing toward that end was leaving my business and returning to the corporate world. Awesome. It was like I was missing from the world and rediscovered life. I've had a great time just going to work, going out to lunch, going to functions after work, basically just being engaged with other people without all the BS and craziness. I really, really missed that when I was working my my business partner. It's also been awesome to get up every day and look like and feel like an adult. I know that's a weird statement, but I've really enjoyed buying and wearing work clothes, mind you, we have somewhat of a casual work environment where many of my coworkers are t-shirts and tennis shoes type of folks, which is perfectly acceptable, but I don't want to be one of them. I was a card-carrying member when I was 500+ lbs, but not anymore. I like wearing good clothes to work, having my hair look cute, wearing an actual coat with a scarf, all of that. It just makes me feel good and makes me feel like I've made big strides in leaving some of the old Tia behind that needed being left behind. The one thing I wanted to do in 2008 that I haven't done yet is date. I really want to start dating but haven't the slightest idea of how to get that going. One thing I did notice is that I am oblivious to signals that guys send off. I saw this one guy in the cafeteria at work and we had a little moment, a little spark and I just walked away... it didn't occur to me til later that duh, there was something there. Sigh, I need like a dating coach or something.... The old biological clock is ticking and it's not like I want to get married tomorrow, I just want to be going down that road.

All of this is important because in 2009, I will be focusing on my new business venture which I am very excited about. I've been working on it for like two months now and it's materializing into something that I really feel will be successful for me and most importantly, I get to drive. I get to set the tone. I get to be leader and that excites me the most. I've been able to network and talk to potential clients and have felt incredibly confident in myself and I finally know what it's like to not have to be so worried about how fat I am. It's awesome. These are people who haven't the faintest clue that I was ever so morbidly obese and it's such a trip to actually be normal. Y'know sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and still see a fat girl and then other times, especially when I can see my reflection up against people whom I consider to be normal, I am still shocked that I'm fairly normal, at least normal enough to not stand out from the crowd -- except for being almost 6' tall, but I'm used to that!

Going back to BFL issue, it's a 12 week program and in that time, my goal is to work the program as best as I can. In those twelve weeks, I want to lose 25 lbs of body fat. I don't know if that is going to translate to 25 lbs lost on the scale because with this program, it does increase muscle and strength. I think the best measure of success will be a combination of fat lost, weight lost and inches lost. I will take my % body fat on Day 1 and will keep a weekly tally. I will do the same with measurements, but will make that a monthly thing and weight loss will be a daily thing. The BFL program has it's own progress sheets so I will be keep those up.

I feel good about the start of the year, it isn't a big huge goal, just something to get the year started off right. I do have much smaller ambitions, like reading more books. Since I've been taking public transportation to work for the last 6 months, I have read a ton of books, some of them from my list from last year, others that have caught my eye and some are recommendations from friends. I have a stack of 7-8 books that I've purchased in the last couple of weeks that are already on my reading list and I look forward to picking up some more. First up is "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, I love "The Kite Runner" so am looking forward to finishing this one.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bunch of Real Woman Dollars from Lane Bryant so I decided to go shopping (yet again) and surprise, surprise, I am thisclose to being too small for that store. All the tops are really too big, the sweaters are okay because I usually wear some type of shirt under them so they fit fine. I am suffering from loose waist/bagging bottom syndrome in my Right Fit size 2 jeans so I bought a couple of pairs of size 1's which fit better although they are a little snug in the thigh. Ah, my thighs, my perennial problem area. Hopefully, the work I do in BFL will help. I don't plan to have any kind of plastic surgery in 2009, but will probably start seriously looking into it. I need a lot of work done and will just have to determine what are my wants and what can I live with.

Okay, so I have to tell you about Christmas. I spent Christmas at my friend L's house. I initially thought it was going to be a large group of similarly stranded folks gathering to partake of some holiday cheer, turns out it was largely her family and several neighbors, not too many other single folk. Anyway, it was great overall, food was awesome and I enjoyed myself for the most part. Here's the thing, this is a friend I had known in college and especially during our freshman year, we were very close. To be honest, she was also the pretty one and I was your typical "fat sidekick". That was the role I served, she wasn't much a friend in retrospect, it was really all about her and all the drama in her life. That was the case for the first couple of years of school, but it calmed down the last two years and I sort of went on my way. After graduation we ended up in the same city, but we didn't really live close to each so we didn't hang out much, but when we did, same old story. Anyway this one time, we were volunteering with our local alumni club which was sponsoring a fundraising event, a black tie affair. We were tasked to welcome the guests and give them name-tags or something, I really don't remember. Anyway at the beginning of the night, we were sitting at a table with 3 or 4 other friends (all women) when her boyfriend at the time shows up. She gets all giggly and proceeds to introduce him, one by one, to everyone at the table - except me. I was so hurt. The funny thing is that if I truly thought it was an accident, it wouldn't have bothered me so much and I probably would have just introduced myself and forgotten about it, but in my heart, I knew it was intentional. I was already feeling self-conscious because I had to wear my standard black skirt, white shirt (the only "dressy" outfit I had) and of course, I was the biggest person there. I already felt crappy from the get-go and then she goes and does that. After that night, I avoided her and maybe saw her once or twice in the following weeks, but honestly hadn't talked to her in like 8 or 9 years.

So Christmas dinner, 2008. I will be the first to admit that sometimes people change and I had largely forgiven her and frankly moved on. This is her first time seeing me in years, so obviously, I've lost a lot of weight and she seems genuinely happy about it. Everything seems fine, I get introduced to her whole family, they are perfectly nice people, all is good. Then her neighbors get there. Her out of town family members don't know these people, neither do I. L proceeds to introduce her neighbors, one by one, to everyone there - except for me. It registered in my brain, but I was like "ok, whatever" and I make sure to introduce myself and move on.

After all that, we eat, after dinner, we play a few games - Taboo and Catchphrase, good times. So we're all chilling talking and stuff and the conversation turns to how good the food was. L starts talking about which person made what -- so and so made the banana pudding, she made the spaghetti, her dad cooked almost all the desserts, etc. She runs down almost the entire menu and mind you, I'm sitting almost directly in front of her, maybe 3 feet away and she doesn't mention anything I brought. Mind you, I brought the freakin' Christmas ham and baked mac & cheese, both big hits! I just looked at her. I was done. It's like what Maya Angelou said "when people show you who they are, believe them!" I saw all I needed to see and within an hour or so, I was in my car, making my way home. I won't be socializing with her anymore. It's not that I'm mad, honestly, I'm really not, I feel more relieved, like I dodged a bullet, because what I do remember most about our "friendship" in college was that I was a very, very good friend to her and she wasn't much of one to me. She was exhausting and kinda shallow and trifling. Nope, don't need that crap. When I hugged her goodnight, it was more of a good-bye. I'm sure I'll come across her now that I'm more out and about and I'll be sure to be perfectly amicable, but outside of that, not gonna go there!

Well, I've babbled enough. I need to start blogging more consistently, I tend to keep all my thoughts in reserve and then it's like an avalanche! Good grief!