Thanks so much for coming by for this story, but the revision of Half-Breed to Metis was published in error on April 1st. It is scheduled for publication on April 18th.
Please come back then to read it, and in the meantime I hope you’ll enjoy my effort at short fiction that was published today called, “The Mirror”.
Warmest regards,
RL
While I’m off restoring my inner warrior, some friends have stepped up to bat to help me out by sharing some pretty amazing stories of growing triumphs of their own.
This guest story is from a dear friend of mine who has been, and continues to be, on a remarkable and sometimes unrecognizable, journey of transformation …
I went on my first diet in grade 5, at about 10 yrs old. I wasn’t huge; I just needed to lose 10 lbs or so – ‘to be normal’. My mom bribed me with a pair of the then popular stirrup pants because, “you can’t wear those if you’re heavy”. Of course I did it. Starved myself and lost the weight, but it only creeped back over the next few months plus another 10 lbs.
I only ever wanted to be normal. It’s been my goal for as long as I can remember. I didn’t need to be thin or beautiful, just normal. What I wanted now was for people not to stare at me as I walked through the mall. To avoid having children at the grocery store or hair salon ask their mothers, “Why is that lady so fat?” To be able to go on a bike ride or run around on the soccer field with my kids. Things that “normal” people do.
Of course, that was then and my idea of ‘normal’ has changed drastically since I started this journey…
There was never any reason for it, the constant weight gain. I came from an amazing, loving family who had high expectations of me, but nothing crazy. The truth is, I just love food and hate exercise. Always have, always will. Unfortunately, I eat when I’m happy, sad, or stressed.
When I’d go on a diet , it wasn’t just my stomach aching for food, but my heart too
.
I’ve gained and lost hundreds of pounds and had asked for help so many times, it was embarrassing. The answer was always, “Why don’t you try weight watchers and cut out the fried food.” Um, thanks for that…why didn’t I think of that? In fact, I was always an extremely healthy eater. I just ate too much, too often.
After 28 years of yo-yo dieting, using every program, supplement, clinic and cabbage soup recipe, someone gave me the courage to do something different. My two sisters-in-law, to whom I will always be grateful, finally stopped tiptoeing around the problem by stating outright that I needed medical help. I’d already known this, but I was always just too scared of what people would think to make the call.
From the time I finally did make that call, I spent over 18 months on a wait list before I was contacted again for an orientation about my options. It took another 6 months of several follow-up appointments, journaling, exercise, counselling and more before I was approved for the surgery I’d chosen.
On February 5th 2015, I had gastric sleeve surgery. I weighed 280 lbs after already losing 20 lbs by then. They cut out most of my stomach and left a pouch about the size of a banana. Yes, it was painful, but I had a goal and normal finally felt like it was within my reach.
The results since have been amazing physically, emotionally and in general growth. From my orientation of August 2014 to September 2015, I lost a total of 135 lbs, most since February 5th.
The transformation was apparently equally startling. I was surprised by the number of people who didn’t recognize me and the looks of shock on their faces was comical. Quite a few people literally did not recognize me; they thought I was my own sister.
From August 2014 to September 2015, I lost a total of 135 lbs
Shock aside, I’ve seen something beautiful happen too. When I show my before and after pictures to the people who really know me and love me, they are always surprised that I was ever that big. The one thing I’ve learned is that those people never saw the outward person that I was always embarrassed about. They just saw me.
The extended pluses: I can now do any exercise I want. My debilitating back pain is gone. I don’t need an afternoon nap. I walk in public and don’t constantly wonder what all those staring people are thinking of me. I really don’t care anymore, which is weird for me. I’ve always cared. Always worried about what everyone else thinks. I’m also more comfortable around my husband in our more intimate situations. That’s a huge step for me. I even gained the courage to apply for and get a new job.
You’d think with all this joyous news I‘d be happy, complete, & unconcerned about the future. Well, the reality is that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Despite the overall success, I have one unusual drawback. I am still constantly bombarded with hunger and cravings – gnawing, painful hunger. Like my stomach is trying to eat itself, and while I am now more able, exercise is a daily mental struggle. I wish I was one of those people who started loving it, but I’m not.
Worse than all of that, is the fear. I am terrified of gaining the weight back and having everyone know I failed. After all the amazing people who helped and supported me, is it possible that I could allow my brain to derail me?
But, in a way, isn’t this what normal is? Aren’t we all afraid of failing…no matter what our goal or accomplishment? If only we could learn and truly believe success isn’t about a number on the scale, the level of education we’ve achieved, or the amount of money we have in the bank.
And so, this is the next goal for me. Learning to be happy with Karen, regardless of how much I weigh, or more importantly, what other people think of me. This is what should be ‘normal’.
-Karen Kelt
When life knocks you onto your buttocks and it feels like you may never catch your breath or a break again, sometimes something really, really wonderful shows up.
Maybe it’s not the lotto win or the love of your life, but it gives you at least a few minutes of awesome respite. Real awe. Awe, as in the original intention of the term, reverential respect, astonishment, extra special wonder…
I know inspirations can be anything for anyone, but for me, a little gem I came across a couple of years ago was positively heavenly in its level of power and I have returned to bow at it’s rainbow-hued unicorn hooves as much as needed since.
It is the 2010 Kennedy Center’s honoring of Sir Paul McCartney. It is a masterpiece of musical powerhouses, but within that group of exceptional talent, Steven Tyler, heartbeat of Aerosmith, brought me to my feet especially.
Steven’s initial magnificent mix is in this first link: Steven Tyler 2010 Kennedy Center Honoring Paul McCartney
But…
But…
If you really, really want to treat yourself to a show that brought the President of the United States, the First Lady, Oprah, the Sir Paul McCartney and even Sir Stoic, Colin Powell to their feet in joyous glee, watch the whole portion of that tribute: 13 Minutes and 50 Seconds of Sublime
If this doesn’t have you up in mind, body or spirit, somebody better call the coroner. You have to be dead.
RL
Friends, Ed & E called. They were concerned, curious mostly about the intensity and/or emotional topics on my recent posts, and because I’ve been missing in action.
I have been quieter in general, but to address some of their concern, I explained that I usually write about my or other’s experiences in the way they felt at the time of the occurrences. It gives the impression they all happened recently, but really they could have happened yesterday or thirty years ago.
I do mix them up because while they make the point that I want, it also protects people who may need shielding. I also just like to indulge in a little mystery for fun.
Admittedly, the events of late are not all related to that fun; they have been more unusually taxing. So yes, I’ve been more reserved in my activities and have expressed more personal poignancy in my posts.
I manage a rare disease within my daily routine. For the most part everything about me seems pretty normal, except for when this disease bounces my world into chaos.
To explain the beast in 10 words or less – it’s an inflammation-based disease of all kinds of irritation, but mainly it unpredictably interferes with organ function and defies prognosis. It’s a pick an organ, any organ to screw with when it’s bored or cranky, kind of bastard. I call these visits by it, the ‘big ones’.
Friends may observe it has pounced by my newly inhibited movement, or noticeable weight loss, or I might be hospitalized for months engaged in hand to hand combat with the Grim Reaper. Sometimes he’s content to just gnaw on a limb for a few weeks.
The moments in between these time-outs are the same as most – work, growing kids, growing me, up days, down days, and once in a while even surviving catastrophic days unrelated to my health.
This fall, previously written about on the loss of someone I loved, and the pain of a betrayal, played into that old myth that these sort of events come in threes.
So, in the midst of the hell, number three showed up, in the form of another scary, frustrating flare-up. It would take another post to detail it and I’d rather leave it at saying I acquired a painful syndrome that they say will take a couple of years to unwind. It also triggered a former crisis. Let the good times roll.
Of course, I’m scared. Yes it troubles me, and yes, I’ve cried. Navigating pain is tricky business & each of these events makes me feel just a little bit or a lot bit, lost at times. There is a real aura of alone because I am in some ways, the least of which is that I have never met anyone who has my disease.
Not that I wish for someone else to have it for company. It can stir up a weird head space though. I’ve actually envied cancer patients. They have so much support, myriad services and immediate sympathy. And ready understanding.
Once I walked out of a private ‘washroom for disabled’ and a woman waved her cane and loudly castigated me, “You should know this room is for the disabled!”
I’d used the privacy to deal with a temporary drainage bag attached into my belly. I only stared at her, feeling indignant embarrassment as I brushed past her. I wish I would have said something to puncture her presumptions and I still can’t believe I didn’t…
That experience was too new for me to think fast enough. Maybe. Probably, I was drugged. I’d later considered wearing a scarf to cover my hair – chemo hair-loss style – whenever I was struck by the big ones. I eventually got over that and earned another level of psyche strength; I definitely don’t feel obligated to always explain myself anymore.
Which leads me toward the point of this post. Well, it will somewhere down the line.
Hindsight is 20/20 when measuring growth through adversity, but when awesome reader/friends, Rebekah Ingram & Randall Willis, zinged me with some gorgeous insight, there was an intriguing moment of ‘aha’!
Their views pointed me to observing the growth & changes in me as they are occurring. Maybe we call it 10/10 forevision. This means I’m paying attention to what’s going on in my feelings, body & spirit now, during these trials, rather than surviving and processing later.
Along with mom & dad flying across the country to hug & assist me, I believe applying this new aspect could, in some ways, help me heal a little faster.
It’s another work in progress, but I look forward to seeing what’s being brought to me and through me with this new process. I’ll start in gratitude to these friends for sharing their caring hearts at just the right time.
So, not every love story resembles the Harlequin Romance model or the Dr. Phil / Oprah recommendations of ‘healthy’, nor are they as far off the chain as the trailer park trashy gymnastics of the Jerry Springer couplings either.
Sometimes they’re the stuff of mythical proportions. Heady. Messy. Legendary – Taylor and Burton, Bacall and Bogart, Hepburn and Tracy – all grown from impossible drama seeds planted within the largest of human persona.
They’re the masters of the double black diamond slopes of emotional mountain ranges – INTENSE and tender, RAGING and nurturing, DANGEROUS and comforting Mythical Gods come to life, breathtaking to behold, and dizzily staggering to live with.
Not all are destined for fame or the full theatre; some of these lesser-sized immortals are merely just around the cul-de-sac circles, seemingly average neighbours, but just as fiery, and we knew two of them.
He will say she was unforgiving,
She will say he was unbearably untrustworthy.
He will say she is relentless wariness,
And she will say he mercilessly pushes her over limits.
He will say she is insanely focused on rules,
She will say his demands are cruel humiliations.
He will say she refuses to understand him,
She will say, seeking true empathy from him is like talking to the dead.
He will say she is every appalling name in the book,
And she will say, she loathes that he is only either angel or demon.
He seeks her adoring maternal nurturing,
She begs him to stand tall as a real & loyal hero.
She will say he burned down their home,
He will say she lit the match.
He will admit how awful he is,
She will concede that she aches for his good days.
He will say, he despises needing her this much,
She will say, she hates that she will never love another as deeply.
He will trim his beard for her,
She will grow her hair long for him.
He will kiss her neck,
She will take his hand in hers.
He will hold her face,
She will lean her head on his back.
He can be calmed only by living with the ordinary, the banal,
She can be safe only within strength without edges.
Their light has been, will be, entwined for eternity,
They will say goodbye,
1,001 times — or more.
…………………………………………………………………
Marianne Williamson said: “Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.”
I’d add forgiveness does not mean having to keep anyone in your life. It means getting to your own genuine peace after exiting the dark.
Happy Love Day, to all. Here’s to the ups and downs and twists in life, regardless of the degrees, that steer us to our strengths, and hopefully, to our best love.
RL ❤
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