An Anniversary Journey
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 1:19PM I forgot my anniversary.
No, not that one - although I wouldn't be surprised if I did forget my wedding anniversary one year. The hubby is much better at remembering those types of dates than I am. (He always remembers it's our dating anniversary before I do.)
All day yesterday I was thinking, "3/9. 3/9. Why does that sound so significant? What's March 9th?" Finally, around 5pm as I headed into class I remembered - it's my surgiversary.
Surgi-wah? Surgiversary - the anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. Aren't we WLS (weight loss surgery) people funny? Usually I hate made up/combined words like that (like recessionista or shoppurtunistic) but surgiversary has stuck with me.
I had my gastric bypass on March 9, 2004 - so this year was my 6th anniversary - and I suppose the reason it slipped my mind is that 1 - I am not a post-surgery success so I don't count those milestones anymore and 2 - it's really not the same daily part of my life that it was before. I can pretty much eat 90% of foods with only minor repercussions for some of them (and I've found that while pregnant, I actually have increased food tolerance - must be some biological directive for that).
Ordinarily, a WLS patient posts something that looks like this: 350/250/150. 350 being their pre-surgery weight, 250 being current, and 150 being goal (those are just made-up numbers, by the way). I hate discussing weight in terms of numbers, though. Visual representations always seem to be much better.
This is me, 5 1/2 months pre-surgery:
That's me and my dad at my sister's wedding in September 2003. I was my sister's maid of honor; her bridesmaids were three of the thinnest girls I've ever known. (Seriously - they were all a size 2.) It was a joyous day, but a tough one. I pretty much felt bad about myself the entire day.
This is me at my thinnest, Fall 2005, post plastic surgery. I'm posting this picture even though the style of it is controversial:
Even though most of us are used to the "look how big I used to be because my pants were huge!" photos, they're really frowned upon because it's very judgmental of the people who wear that size currently. For me, though, it really represented what I had lost. I actually fit in one leg of those shorts. By the pounds, I wasn't half my size - but by the size on my pants, I was actually less than that.
I still have those shorts.
This is me six months later, attending a friend's wedding (February 2006):
The dress is a size 14 (I think) from White House/Black Market. Even though I can no longer fit into it, I still have it. I'm not usually one to save clothing, thinking, "One day..." but that dress is the exception. At that point I had gained about 10-15 lbs from my lowest weight. I felt remarkably self-conscious about it, sure everyone would be able to tell I was failing at my weight loss. Obviously, I looked great and should have felt great.
This is me the following summer (July 2006):
I hated this picture when I first saw it because I looked huge compared to how I had looked just a year prior. Now? Now I wish those capris fit.
This is me this past October:
Am I happy with that? No, clearly not. In that photo, I am about 60 lbs heavier than I am in the White House/Black Market lace dress photo above. I'm pregnant in the photo, but only about two months, so I hadn't gained any pregnancy weight yet.
I don't have any really recent photos, including no pregnancy photos, actually. I thought about doing the weekly photo thing but by the time I thought about it, we had missed so many weeks... and then I was nearly 25 weeks before I could see a difference and 28 weeks before other people could, so I've just been a bit "eh" about the whole idea.
This is actually the first week I feel like I look pregnant - like, if someone were to look at me, they'd think I was pregnant and not just carrying extra weight. It's an extremely odd (and I have to admit, uncomfortable) feeling; one I haven't quite reconciled with yet.
It's not really a weight loss journey I'm on. I thought it was, but it's not. It's a body journey, a self journey - and it's never going to end. There's this baby and maybe (hopefully?) there'll be another in a few years. There's pregnancy recovery, aging... all sorts of life factors. I don't plan on having any further surgical procedures to alter my body, but I guess I can't really know about that now. If money is no object, perhaps I would have some nipping and tucking done post-kids. Who knows.
Right now I'm working on owning this journey - and it's not easy. It's not easy for me to look at these photos, much less post them. But it's a part of the process. I can't hide what I've looked like, what I've done and not done - least of all from myself. I'd like to think I won't ever inhabit either one of the extremes posted in the photos above. I hope not to ever reach my heaviest weight again, but I'm also fairly certain I won't ever reach my lowest again. But I'm okay with somewhere in the middle. If my journey ends up just middle-of-the-road, I'll happily rest there.
Reader Comments (3)
I love that dress! I'm bad about holding on to clothes that are too small. I bought a pair of jeans from American Eagle, that I were too small but I said I'd fit into in no time, that was 5 years ago, they still don't fit, but I still own them. And I will fit into them (actually I might almost fit now). I think having been working on my body image issues I've learned that most of what we hate about our bodies is in our head. Now yes I'm overweight, hell I'm fat even. But not as fat as my minds eye sees me. Because even at my thinest (a size 10 when I was 17) I thought I looked fat. Now I'm more accepting of my body. I'm not built to be a size two it's simply not my frame. So I work on getting to a healthy place for my body. I work on being active and healthy not thin, and that has seemed to help a lot. I think weight loss and body image stuff is tricky. I'm glad you're getting to a place where you seem to be figuring out your journey for yourself.
Loved this post. Thank you for sharing. It's amazing how mean our brains can be to our bodies. I've never really dealt with a weight issue, but living in Los Angeles for 10 years, whoa baby, that can give you a complex. I was in OA for a time shortly after college because I was eating like crazy and didn't ever want to see any of my friends - just wanted my homemade brownies. But, as many of us learn, it wasn't about the weight or the food. At that time, it was about how the hell do I go from 16 years of a life with a syllabus to a life without one? At least, without a syllabus made up by someone else. And, like you say, it is about that middle of the road. If I ate too much one night I'd try not to eat the next day. Eventually, I just learned that I feel best when I just eat...normally.
I had no idea that the "smaller body into the bigger pants" photos were controversial! I wondered why until you explained. And, I'm with you, it's about a personal journey. Everyone's on their own journey. If someone wants to take that photo and be irritated because that's their size, that takes away from your journey and the choices you made and the lessons you learned. I think the photos are great. They speak to your journey. You're an incredible writer and you're honest with yourself and your readers. You'll be a great mom.
Wow! Thanks for sharing. Weight is definitely a hot topic these days. And the older we get, the less our bodies obey us!