On this latest round of re(re)joining Weight Watchers, when they asked me about “my why,” I struggled.
I mean, I’ve had enough “whys” than China has rice. I just had to look up my last round. Which is kind of cool, really. Because I can cross a lot of those things off the list.
Problem was, I needed that list a couple weeks ago. Because I was totally caught on the spot.
The very first time I joined WW in 2008, it was after a photo shoot at my company. They wanted my face on the website that I had spent a year building.
I felt cute that day. Couldn’t wait to see my face listed as an expert on a website I loved.
Holy shit. I could not believe how fat I was.
I can’t even find that photo online anymore. And thank God for that. I know I have a similar photo from Las Vegas at my storage unit that is equally hideous. But either way, it was a wake-up call.
Here we are nine years later, and my company sent me to our studio to take a photo for our website. This after my last boss didn’t want me to have an online presence at all. Or the title he kept promising me for five years. But whatever. I got the title … now for the bio.
And … holy shit. No I am not putting THAT new pic up either.
I mean, the good news is that I was about 252 pounds in the first instance, and around 165 in the second. So I am OVERJOYED to be the “me” of today.
But at 5-foot-3 (and shrinking, it seems. I was 5-foot-4 just two years ago), I have a tiny frame, it seems.
I have a brand-new office now. The second-best one in the building, it seems.
And even though I miss my office that I was forced to abandon in May (I just went there today. My heart still breaks and nothing is going to keep that from happening every time I think about the place I loved), there’s one wonderful perk.
That is, people keep coming in and saying, “OMG you’re such a tiny person for this big office!”
Heck, I even fit under my desk. With plenty of room to spare.
And no one can see me over my monitors, either. Which has its perks. (That is, it gives me time to DIVE UNDER THAT DESK.)
I like being called tiny. (That’s not “my why.” But it’s a good one!) I like FEELING tiny. Comparatively speaking, of course. I know I ain’t *actually* tiny.
But when I looked up the “my why” post of last year, it feels familiar.
A thousand years ago, I just wanted to open a laptop on a plane. (Seats have gotten so much smaller, it’s a goal AGAIN.)
I want to zip up my calf boots without blowing out the zipper or having calf-sized muffin top.
Etcetera.
I still want to live longer/healthier than my family.
But this year, I have another “why.”
I’ve spent the last 10 years taking care of mom. Whether or not the fact that my social life is in flames is correlation or causation isn’t important here.
(I’m sure I still would have worked myself to death and found other excuses about my single-ness and aversion to “friends.”) Because everything is expensive, money-wise. And no price is greater than wasted time.
In any event, I need to stay youngish and healthy-ish because I lost 10 years. I mean, they’ve been great and fun and all. But I lost out on big vacations. Never got to Europe. Never got out of Florida this last near-decade, really.
Which is fine because people die to come HERE. So we explore it as best we can. But to be fair, we explore it as best SHE can.
And right now I’m feeling like if I don’t get to do the things I want now, what if I won’t GET to … just like when she finally could live her life, her health went to shit?
I am sure I’m not saying it correctly. It’s not that I haven’t been happy. I just know that a day is going to come when I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to.
And I want to be healthy enough to enjoy every last second of it.
I’d also like to say hello to a hot guy when I’m walking on the beach and not have him reel in abject horror that I am talking to him.
That was never really a “why” that I consciously recognized. But, you know, I do feel like I deserve someone great. I just need them to LOOK BACK AT ME when I see them.
So I don’t have a number I’m working toward unless it’s a phone number, a wedding date and a move-in date to a beach house with a boat parked outside that comes with a hot man attached. One who wants me to be around for a long, long time so we can see the world together.
And I want to grant that wish.