Day 138--I'm Back! and more things in list form that are different

I had a lovely time this weekend. I got to my sister's Thursday evening and came home this afternoon. It was so wonderful to have a vacation like that. The bus ride was fun (it wasn't a school bus, it was a church bus), the women were all nice and fun, and I'm so glad I went.
So. Some things happened over the weekend that are new so here is another one of Zaa's famous lists:

• I sat down on the curb with my sister while she put another nail in her coffin but I didn't want to sit down on the curb because I can never get UP from the curb after I sit DOWN on the curb. But I did because my sister said yes she thought I could get up from the curb. Guess what. I got up from the curb all by myself like a normal person. I did not have to get on my HANDS AND KNEES and THEN stand up like the last time because there was no way I could ever get up on my own and sure as heck nobody could PULL me up. So then I hugged my sister like a deranged idiot in the hotel parking lot. I think she's used to it by now.
• I ran down my sister's hall.
  
• I ran up her stairs.
• I walked down her outside steps that have no guard rail just like normal, not one at a time with baby steps. I love this one.
  
• My sister lent me a pair of socks and they were crew socks and normally I fold down any and every sock because I haven't been able to pull up socks around my calves for years but this time I thought hmmmm and tried to pull them up to see if I could pull them up and I pulled them up over my calves! Well that just blew me away.
  
• While carrying all of my junk (my suitcase, duffel bag, purse, Bible and conference bag and that doesn't sound heavy but man it was!) we went up and down flights of stairs. I would never have been able to do that before losing weight. And once there were a ton of women waiting for the elevator so my sister and I took the stairs instead. And it was not even harder than walking I could not believe it. I had a few heavy breaths after the second floor but that was all. No red face. No fear of a heart attack or stroke. Didn't even feel heavy to raise each leg up to the next stair, it used to always be so hard because my legs were so HEAVY
• We went to Wendy's for lunch and I fit in the booth with lots of room to spare. Are all booths the same size? Am I just miraculously going to specific restaurants that have larger than normal booths? It makes eating out doubly fun to not have my breasts hanging out over the table because the table is jammed into my midsection and I can't breathe and the food tray takes up all the room on the table instead of right before me because I can't put it there because my breasts are there. Can I get an amen?
• We went to a cheese store which I guess is really famous but I never heard of it before and they had chocolate fudge cheese and what a blasphemy it is to put cheese and chocolate together some things do not belong together. Well I guess this isn't something new but it was so grody. They had apples and cinnamon cheese and blueberry cheese I mean come on who thinks up this stuff? They were grody too. But I loved the 5 year aged sharp cheddar cheese. Sharp is my fav. Oh I guess I should mention that for every type of cheese in their store they have a small tub with that kind of cheese cut into chunks right there so you can taste it.
  
• I am ashamed and giddy in equal proportions from seeing women who were fatter than me at the conference. I can't even remember the last time that happened. In fact, I remember the first time I realized I was the fattest person in the room. It was at my nephew's wedding and we were all being posed for a picture and I was just casually looked around and noticed that everyone was slender and I was the only fat person there. Because I weighed over 300 pounds even back then. And everywhere I went I started really looking and discovered to my horror that I was almost always the fattest person everywhere I went: church, Walmart, the Walmart bathroom, Thriftway, family dinners, lunch with friends. I did every once in a blue moon see someone bigger than me and I was insanely glad and immediately felt better about myself. See, I could always be bigger! I hadn't reached the biggest size yet so I was okay!
  
• Many trips to the public bathrooms at the church and always took the regular stalls with a bit of trepidation but towards the end never even worried about it: I always fit. Me. On a regular basis fitting into a regular stall with room to spare and no trouble wiping at all. This is one of the things that thrills me the most but I can't tell everyone in my life about it because it's kind of gross you know? I can tell you because I don't even know if that many people even see this blog! I'm anonymous.
• Oh I'm officially 'out' on Facebook! My son wanted pics of my hair so my daughter and I traipsed outside and I posed by the big elm tree in the corner of our yard. She plainly put on the pics that I had lost 54 pounds, that I was the 'new and improved Zaababy'. Everyone and their brother saw them and commented everyone is so nice. So now I am even more accountable than I was before because now everyone knows! I hope noone says to me 'are you supposed to eat that?' You know, this being accountable stuff is kind of weird and scary but I think I like it. Wait who said that!

I never want to forget what it was like for me at my biggest. How I could not maneuver through a room without bumping into things; how I couldn't go up or down steps without a huge amount of difficulty; I always had spilled food on my shirt--always--it was the family joke; I hated myself; how I felt that everyone around me was always thinking how disgusting I was; how I used to feel: depressed, down, discouraged, sad, sometimes suicidal, lazy, apathetic, hopeless; all of my dreams for life were unattainable because I was too fat to achieve any of them; I wouldn't go to public pools or amusement parks or any kind of park or anywhere where walking was required because I just physically couldn't do it except for the pool where I refused to go because no way on earth was I going to put on a bathing suit and let everyone at the pool see me in my bathing suit and I was not going to sit in a chair on the side of the pool reading a book while my family had fun without me; I would wake up in the morning and say to myself 'I hate everybody and everything' isn't that awful? I find it helpful to reread my posts every once in a bit, starting from the beginning. It's weird to read them and remember how it was for me back then. Already I'm forgetting about the agony of the bathroom stalls. One time I had to wipe standing up and I still couldn't reach everything. Sorry that was gross right?
Okay so I got this nifty award for being honest and one of the rules I guess is I have to tell 10 things that you do not know about myself. So here we go:

1. I play the piano and guitar
2. My Dad was in special ops while I was a kid and we got to travel to and live in Taiwan and Singapore. We moved to the states permanently when I was 9.
3. I didn't go to Kindergarden. When we lived in Taiwan I was 5 and went to school but went right into 1st grade. I was always the youngest in my class.
4. I love to cook.
5. I hate to clean.
6. I have seen every sex in the city episode a jillion times and I want to be Carrie
7. I have never bought a lottery ticket.
8. I can still remember how to write in shorthand. I learned how over 25 years ago. Weird too, I never even use it.
9. I do not drink alcohol. At all. It tastes disgusting. Which is good, because I probably would have become an alcoholic
10. I used to smoke cigarettes. I started when I was 18 and quit them cold turkey February 4th at 2:30 pm 18 years ago. I celebrate every year.
    

And there you have it folks. I am so tired tonight. I wish I didn't have to get up so early tomorrow! Have a great night.