Brand new sounds in my mind

This morning, I decided to hop on my scale, just to see what it said.

A number flashed on the display that I have never seen before.

And after weighing myself three more times, I accepted that I am less than ten pounds away from losing a total of 120 pounds in a little over two years

I texted two friends about it and then went about my day

However, my lack of enthusiasm or unwillingness to post about it on social media does not mean I'm not happy about this milestone

Since I am not one to shy away from being honest, my lack of excitement is because I am struggling more at this moment than I have in a long while

Thankfully, I am not struggling with the temptation of food

As anyone who reads this blog regularly might have realized, I am so angry these days

Not only am I angry, moments in my past that I have done my best to black out are re-emerging

So, I'm either angry or wanting to hide myself away in my house in a blanket fort and not see any other humans

One memory that keeps haunting me is something that happened my very first semester of undergrad

I was roommates with a girl whose face fell upon meeting me and realizing that she had been assigned to live with a fat girl

So, from the start, it was not a good scenario

And lest any of my readers think this was all in my mind, about a week after our semester started, I saw that she had written on her desk calendar "I hate Big D"

Anyhow, I was miserable.

I was in a strange, big city

I was not making friends

I was living with someone who treated me like garbage just because I was overweight

And her brother also happened to be a freshman with us as well, and spent 95% of his time around his sister

So, after trying my damnedest for a month to make this work for me, I gave up

And was only making it through by having long phone calls with friends and family, as well as emailing my high school friends

One night, after a horrible weekend in which I overheard my roommate compare me to a dog, I was on the verge of losing my mind

So, I called my sister to talk

As I hung up the phone with her, my roommate's brother burst into our room

He looked at me and screamed into my face "you are a big fat piece of shit"

Needless to say, it only went downhill from there. I did finally move out a month later, running away from him and his sister

And irregardless of the fact I attended a school with over 20,000 students, I would still run into him or her until I graduated

And they never stopped bullying me

I do not understand why, over twenty years later, I keep reliving that moment in my mind, the moment he looked into my eyes and said those eight words to me

And at the same time, right now, I find myself being accepted and loved by my church community, as well as others

Yet, as I said to a friend the other night, it's all a novelty to me, to find myself so accepted by others, as it's not what normally happens

Then again, last night, I was at a class and was overlooked by a man as we were supposed to go around the table and share our ideas

Every other person at our table, the two more attractive women and the other man, the self appointed leader pointed at them and wanted their thoughts

However, he passed right over me

Which surprised me at first, then I got annoyed that I was surprised to be overlooked, as being overlooked is not something novel to me

The more I sat there, the angrier I got. The more I just wanted to walk right on out and go home to hide

And when it was finally time to go home, as I drove home, I berated myself for accepting being overlooked

There is this weird complacency washing over me, that when I get treated poorly or bullied, these days, I just take it without standing up for myself

Which is what I had always done, pre-Roosevelt.

I am not sure what is going on with me, but I don't like it

I don't like that I'm now questioning things that I used to be so certain of

I find myself getting angry over things I have had no control over

Or things I was in control over, such as my size. Such as the choices I made that led me to obesity

The choices I made that led me to cling to my girth for so long

My stubbornness in reaching out to find what I was lacking in my life

All of the what ifs...what if I had sought help for addiction earlier, what if I had re-established my relationship with God before I was 37 years old, what if I had not been so complacent, so willing to let others treat me poorly...

I realize that I can not change my past, only how I react to it, however, my struggle now is the shame I feel over how I am reacting to it

And part of not wanting to make a celebration at losing 111 pounds is part of this shame, because how dare I get excited over the fact that I have managed to erase some of the damage I did to my body, to my psyche, to my life?

So, yes, this woman is struggling, in multiple areas and in need of grace

Yet has no idea how to find grace again