How Much Intestines Do We Need Anyway?

 Dear Carolyn,

it's a good thing I don't believe in portends or signs or I'd be in big freaking trouble. I had my first bariatric appointment today and then on the way home my car tire shredded (literally shredded) and I was abandoned on the side of a road with no cell phone service) (Angels everywhere though and people did try to help).

Anyway, I will be getting the surgery. There's a choice of 2: full gastric bypass or gastric sleeve. I need to have more conversations with other people to know which to do. But I'm figuring by the end of January it should happen. 

I don't know how to feel about the whole thing. I mean, we both know that losing weight is something I can do. Keeping weight off is not. The surgery will take the weight off and if I'm willing to work with the team and d the real work of taking care of me, then the weight should stay off. Which means knee surgery in my future and a visit to Japan to see Mollie and walk the wild streets.

But weight Carolyn. Talking to a woman about weight is more than numbers or intentions or dietary misdeeds and good doings. It's a lifetime of never being pretty enough, skinny enough, worthy enough. Gaining weight as a teenager was a way to create a boundary of fat to keep my father's hands off me. It was a wall to hide behind. It was the most necessary and hated part of me.

Can I be thin? I don't know how to be thin. If I don't have my buffer of fat then what do I rely on? If I'm rejected I lose the convenient excuse of my weight to blame. When I fail then I fail, not my weight.

God, it's a ridiculous door to open. That room where weight resides is the worst room in the house. Created as one thing, turned into a half dozen other. It's a million excuses, even more heartbreaks and it's comfortable. So comfortable to have this fat to hide behind.

You and I will have a lot of conversations about this one, honey babe. I'd suggest you bring snacks, you might need it  ;)

Lori