Its been a little over  six months since I started this crazy ride.  I’m down 90 lbs, have gone from a 30/32 shirt to a 22/24 and a  30 pant to a 22.  I seem to be going thru some damn stinking stall right now and it’s sort of ticking me off.  I started exercising a few weeks ago so I know about water gain due to building muscles, but this is a critical point in my journey – the 100 lb mark and I hoped to hit it quick by hitting the gym.  Not so.  Grrrr.  I keep gaining and losing the same damn 3 lbs!  Another reason to be irritated by all this is the dreaded PMS.  Am I retaining  more water than usual because I am getting ready for my exceedingly unwanted visitor?   OK, Sidebar...First of all, I do not plan to have kids.  See, I like kids in general, I just don’t want to own any.   So why in the hell my body must prepare for the possibility of kids once a month without my expressed consent ticks me off just a little.  Five to six days of discomfort, inconvenience and just plain grossness for what? Nothing! Then, throw in unwanted pounds, swollen ankles, a voracious appetite – all in direct violation of my weight loss goals.  Pffft the whole miracle-of-birth crap is lost on me and some months I  pray for early onset menopause.  Can I take you on yet another sidebar to better  illustrate why I find kids so…so…high maintenance and unappealing?  Last Friday I was happily browsing the scrapbook supplies in my local craft store, lost in my own dreamy world of ribbon, stickers and paper when what offends my senses but the  shrieking of some toddler like it was simply the end of his stinking little world.  Annoyed beyond all that is holy, I avoided the snot nosed decibel machine for a good two aisles.  When my luck runs out, I come upon him rattling the baby carrier of his newborn brother like a bag of shake and bake coating.  In protest, his mother  reaches over and smacks his hand.  Of course the screaming starts up even louder and more annoying than before.  If you ask me, the little a-hole deserved it, so I don’t know why he felt so slighted.  Anyway, it was my wish to avoid the whole undignified mess so I just looked the little jerk in the eye to silently let him know I did NOT approve of his behavior and tried to quickly move  past him.  Just as I reach the end of his cart, the little s.o.b. reaches out and slaps my arm!  Apparently he was pissed at mom  for making him stop all attempts at shaken baby syndrome, so in a split second decision, he takes his anger out on me.  Whaaaaat??  I mean I like kids, but generally only kids I know.  The ones I don’t know AND who act like a-holes, well these are the kids I have no use for.  The mom, seeing this blatant physical assault against my person, throws a few meaningless admonishments his way and that was pretty much that.  Ahhhh hello!  No “Sorry my little b@stard hit you”, nothing!  She didn’t even look at me.  At this point, I question who the a-hole is…mom or the kid?  Anyway, you all get the point.  Kids are not in my plans so I resent the fact that Mother Nature shows up every fourth week and wreaks havoc on my body!  Anyway, back to the interesting stuff.  Despite my 3 lb war, I think I am still losing.  The positive comments come almost daily and my clothes continue to get looser.  I should take measurements – I know I should but I just haven’t.  Maybe that would calm my anxieties when I hit these crazy stalls.  I took a 6 month comparison picture, but I honestly looked exactly the same as I did in my 3 month pic.  My friend Amy says it’s because my body is lost in the big clothes so I’ll try to get some pics  that  show my progress better than my old jeans and a t-shirt.   Working out has been OK.  I’m not going to lie to you…I do not like to exercise.  Yes, that’s probably why I am fat but whatev.  I don’t like to sweat.  It messes up my hair and makes me all salty and sticky.  I don’t like it.  I do however, love how my body is shrinking and that, my wonderful OH friends, is MORE than enough incentive to keep going.  Honestly, as much as I don’t like to do it, I love getting thinner, more attractive and healthier that much more.  Plain and simple, my motivation is the product of positive reinforcement and repeated success. Motivation mostly comes from other people – but inspiration…well that comes from within me.  Also, when I am done I have this fantastic body buzz and I love that!  It makes me feel so alive and strong and ready for anything.  Endorphins are just plain cool. A friend of mine recently sent this to me when I was feeling down about my stall and I have to say, it really hit home.  …If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.  If it changes your life, let it.  Nobody said the  journey would be  easy, they just  promised it would be worth it.  Amen friend.  Amen.   

Saturday was my 5 month surgiversary and I couldn’t be happier with my progress – even if I were now at goal!  Seriously, the ride is half the fun.  I don’t want to “be there” yet.  Not just yet.  I mean, it's like living a whole new life and every morning I wake up and think, “Yay!  I get to live life today in this new body”.  What will I wear?  Who will I see? What WOW moments will I experience?  What will change for the better today?
 

I have been experiencing becoming un-invisible.  I now get smiles when people pass, I get doors held open for me, I get super friendly greetings from cashiers and wait staff…I love noticing these little things now. This has been said before, but I have to wonder  if my own increased confidence and self esteem plays some part in all this.  I don’t see how it cant, especially sub-consciously.  I mean, I remember how horrible I felt when I realized my weight had rendered me invisible.  I no longer got looks or smiles from people – they just looked beyond me or over my head as they passed.  It’s the most dismissive, horrible feeling.  As if they are saying you don’t matter enough to make eye contact with and include a simple nod. Sometimes I felt like yelling, “Hey dill weed, you’re certainly no prize either.  Nice mullet and camel-balls”.  I mean, Hello!    What I really hated were the snide comments and snickers I would hear sometimes when I passed by a table of guys at a bar.  “There’s one for ya,” they would remark  and poke their buddy in the ribs.   Are you freakin’ kidding me?  Are you really ridiculing me as I walk by so all of you can laugh at my expense?  WTF? As if I don’t feel self-conscious enough walking into a crowded bar next to my size 7 friends, you f*ckers have to hit me with the one thing I dread  the most?  I hope your drinks render you impotent tonight when you take some trashy bar s*ut home and she generously passes on some horribly inflamed and painful STD to you!   

Huh (blink, blink)?  Ohhh there I go, digressing into happy rainbow daydreams … 

Anyhoo, I realize that I am probably not done dealing with the stupidity of my fellow human beings but I can say that I am no longer invisible to most and that’s a fantastic feeling.  I don’t want to stick out, I just don’t want to be ignored because of my weight. 

Why does invisibility matter so much to me?  Why do I hate it so vigorously?  Well, I thought about that a lot.  What I came up with might seem vain or narcissistic, even conceited  - but these are my thoughts and you’re along for the ride so hopefully you can relate a little: 

Its bad when you’re fat.  At every turn, society says FAT IS BAD.  FAT IS UGLY.  FAT IS WRONG.  Above all, beauty is coveted and revered.  Everyone wants to be beautiful, even though everyone has their own idea of what constitutes beauty.  Eye of the beholder type thing.  Now, imagine a woman with a pretty face - and a fat body. You live in constant conflict.  You know men find you attractive but date you?  Never! Sleep with you?  Well, Duh!  As long as their friends don’t know.  Can we blame them? Maybe, but men are visual and wired to seek out  physical satisfaction in the moment (and don’t really worry about the consequences).  But that’s another blog…  You know other women don’t find you to be a threat, yet they still cannot resist the occasional dig and snarky comment about (say it with a whine) “How fat they are”. Stoopid girls.  They know d@mn well you are in the room and if they think their size 8 @ss is “sooo fat”, what they hell do they think about your’s?  So, if they don’t find you threatening, why the need to make themselves feel better by attempting to make you feel bad about the 150 plus lbs you have on them.  As if you don’t feel bad enough about it already?  Maybe they think you don’t know you are fat and if they gently remind you, it might sink in?? Brilliant! Again, stoopid girls.  Oops, there I go again, digressing.  Sorry. 

Anyway, the reason I hate being invisible so much is this:  When you are fat, that’s bad enough.  When you are fat with a pretty face, that’s all you have.  It doesn’t mean you aren’t smart or fun or that you don’t possess a million other amazing qualities, it just means that you are judged first by your body then by your face.  One takes the sting away from the other and you are give a little societal slack.  When you “lose your face”, what have you got?  It seems like very little. You see it in the mirror every day…what happened?  I don’t get looks or smiles anymore.  Now, I really don’t matter.  These are thoughts that go thru your head and before you know it, you are withdrawing from social situations and pretty much, life. Sigh.

So anyway, that’s why I am so happy that I am coming out of my self-imposed exile.  Maybe I can relate the whole thing to people who started out thin, gained weight and had WLS to lose it.  You had physical beauty before, but then sort of lost it.  So when it comes back, you are happy, healthy and maybe you would only admit it to yourself, but you are also a little bit …a lot bit, relieved. 

You can keep that cloak, Harry Potter.  I’m ok being seen.

Phew! I just got flamed, hated on and generally told off!   I can officially join the club.

So this morning I clicked into a post by someone asking for help/advice.  She was a young post-op who has turned to alcohol.  So I was scanning the replies, seeing only positive responses and thinking  - OK, this is good.  Everyone is being supportive.  Then I see a response from someone who basically flamed her and gave zero support.  Well, that pissed me off.  So, being slightly quick tempered, I responded back and called her a douche.  Not nice, huh? Immature? Probably. Should I have?  Not likely.  But I did - can’t take it back.  I figured I would get responses to my name-calling and should have taken my chastisement like a woman and left it alone.  Not me.  I am PMS’ing.  Sigh…that spells trouble. So, in my own bitchy stupor, I then called her and her defender a bitch.  Now, before you get all… “Well Jo, you deserve a flame after that one”, let me just say, I know.  It just wasn’t nice or even in my nature.  But dammit, I was pissed and PMS’ing and it happened. I should have used better judgment.  I’m not perfect, but I’m also a big hearted, empathetic, sweet and funny supportive person.  I love animals, I am creative, my friends love and support me and I am always there to listen if you need it.  I have bad days and questionable moments just like the rest of you, so what’s done is done.  Also, she got me back by calling me a Twat Waffle. Ok, so if anything, I have a really good sense of humor and I have to agree – that is a good burn.  

So anyway in response, a veteran (WTF ever) and "friend" of both of these women, proceeds to slam me in a 5-6-paragraph post.  Oh no!  I have pissed her off while she's having her coffee.  She tells me I have no business calling her friends bitches, I am just a newbie (since ahh hello, 11/07), have ventured into uncharted territory and as a newbie I have made a terrible impression by calling these women bitches and now everyone will know it and I am doomed (ok, I paraphrased the doomed part for added drama). Oh, and my favorite comment, that I should just “stick to my own forum.”  WTF does THAT mean?

Hmmmm… what?  I have my own forum!!!?  Well that’s cool!!  Wonder where it is?  Wait…o…m…g…  does she mean the Black American forum?  She is freaking kidding me, right? .  Um, pull your pointy white hood down, "roach", cuz I can see your face.  First of all, I was in the R&R forum for God’s sake. Is that forum assigned to some“one” in particular?  Have I overstepped some delusional/residual old south boundaries?  To me, this says waaaaay more about who she is than anything I could have ever said back to her.  Um, Uncharted Territory?  So a “newbie” has never before in the history of OH called someone a name and ticked off all the “girls in the click”??  Please.  I was popular in high school - I know how things work.  In fact, many of the forums/threads on OH are exactly like High School, IMO.  And according to her, now nobody will like Jo.  Oh no, how ever will I manage?    

So here’s the part that gets me - oddly even more so than "roach's" racist comment. BTW, I keep calling her roach because her screen name makes reference to an insect (quite fitting, actually).  Later, I check my mail and see about five responses to my original response (as expected).  One person comments that I have turned an alcoholics plea for help into something all about me.  That’s not it at all.  I was pissed because this girl asks for help and she got such a judgmental, shitty response from someone who has been on here long enough that this girl could really have benefited from her wisdom. Nope.  Instead she blasts her and her character without knowing more than a few sentences about her.  You may not agree, but that's pure BULLSHIT on a forum that purports to be here for the purpose of support.  Shame on OH for allowing such nonsense!!!  Later, I get another from someone who tells me if I cleaned up my language, I could really make a contribution.  I’ll take that as a compliment, because – I happen to agree.  I shouldn’t have name called.  I see another from someone whose story I have followed for many months – from her pre-op issues to her approval to her subsequent loss and victories!  She started her response by agreeing that yes, I was in fact a twat waffle, before moving on to her point about how she is sick of people always accusing others of being trolls.  Now, we have never chatted or exchanged posts, she doesn’t know me - but oddly, I feel particularly cut by her comment because I have always enjoyed her story, following her posts and her sense of humor.  Will that change? I hope not…  (edited to include update:  Yeah, now when I see her posts, I ignore them)

So anyway, that’s my flame story.  At the time, I should have taken the time to express why I got so mad and name called instead of  keeping the back and forth going,  but I didn’t feel like a big long diatribe that early and…well…I was stinking PMS’ing.  I’m not making excuses, I’m owning up to my part in this and I intend to learn from it. So I made a few old bugs (oh, I mean veterans) mad?  Pfffft. BIG EFFING DEAL!  Its only one day in my life and I learned a lot about the kind of poster/OH member I DON’T want to be.  Tomorrow someone else will make a comment that pisses someone off and the whole thing will start over again.  HAve your RAID ready!

The thing is, I saw something on the profile of one of my OH friends - someone I admire immensely and who would never stoop to name calling on the boards; that sums it all up for those who will continue to think I’m a twat waffle or a drama queen or an out-of-line-newbie making waves/picking fights I have no business making: 

“I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best ~ Marilyn Monroe”  Thanks JR J