I know why I am stuck

For those of you that have been following me for a while, you might remember Maddie.

I wrote about her before surgery. I wrote about her being 130 pound weight that I was saying goodbye to. Today I re-visited her and her story, and realized I am at the 130 pound mark of weight loss (or thereabouts). My skin is flabby and I feel deflated. And yet I have never felt more vulnerable, emotional, raw and surprisingly..... strong. Brave in fact.

I realize what I haven't done and what I need to do. Maddie was all past, there was no future written about her. She lived in-between binges and pushed emotions down with food (and as she got older, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. Mostly cigarettes.), and kept people away with her growing girth and snark. She is something I haven't said goodbye to yet, I keep thinking I have, until I have a particularly emotional conversation, and then, there she is, ready to eat an ice cream, take a swig of maple syrup, or devour a pizza (in small measured bites over the course of a day). She can't hide behind smoking (although she really really wants to) and she's tried the alcohol route and found it, well, lacking.

I now get to create Maddie's future. My future. Fuck calling her Maddie-- she's me, I'm her, I get to create my future. Everything is so wide open for me right now-- I have no job, my boyfriend is moving in this weekend, I have a little bit of money in the bank, and I have all the free time in the world...... to create a future.

So, getting back to my point, I know why I am stuck. I am stuck because I never believed it possible to lose 200 pounds. I never gave myself the chance to really go for it all the way. I keep testing it out-- a little sugar here, a little more cheese there, some wine, something to drink with dinner-- all of these things little roadblocks to keep me in check. To keep me from "hurting" myself. Because if I fail at losing 200 pounds, then I will be so devastated, I will really be able to prove to myself I am an entire failure. So these little roadblocks go up as a way to slow me down, "don't get ahead of yourself", and to keep me from the real disappointment. Because I can say right now I haven't done everything it takes to make this surgery and lifestyle a success, I've done "enough" but haven't put my all into it.

It's like this-- my fear comes from a place that says "Hold back because if you really put it all on the line, you might get disappointed. And then you will prove to everyone else that you can't do it." And then the entire makeup of who I am, my facade will fall apart, and people will finally see that I am not superhuman, but in fact just human with faults and vulnerabilities and failures.

I'm thinking about a conversation that touched me so much last night. "You did good work and that's what you should be proud of." Or at least that's what I heard. It touched me because it was validation for the work I accomplished, the role I was, the identity I created. February 2nd that got stripped away from me, and now I realize this is just another way to get to who I am. I am not my job, I am not my surgery, I am not my weight.

Let me repeat that in a different way, I am not what I identify myself with. Surgery, weight, failure, success, job, title, class, money, ability, etc. All that can be stripped away. What's left is who I am.

Now here's the fun part-- who is that? If I cannot identify myself with things outside myself, who am I?

It seems too much to manage right now, but to be honest, it's a great place to start again. To begin something extraordinary. I say "that is past, now to move forward."

Maddie's gone physically. I don't feel her around my waist, clutching me, anymore. She's holding onto various other parts of me, but I can entangle myself. I can honor her for what she has done for me, but she, in essence, has been reduced in force. It has nothing to do with her job performance, but instead her position of protector and stuffer down of feelings has been eliminated.

I feel super free right now. And I have not smoked in 10 days. And I am being sad and weepy and allowing that to happen. No stuffing anything down.

Begin again, it's a beautiful place to be. I get to choose to keep roadblocking myself, or I choose something different. I'm in the inquiry right now.

Again, a beautiful place to be.