A Year!?!?!

Wow...it's been a year since I last blogged! It's a funny thing when life happens.  Real funny.  Funny good, real good!  I'm happier than I've ever been and I'm soooooo close to finishing this PhD.  I should be writing right now, but I'm writing this instead.  On the weightloss front, I've still lost the weight of an average sized adult.  I know what my numbers are and I have friends who are only 20 lbs less than me, but I'll be honest, I still feel like I'm 100 lbs more.  Obviously I KNOW my weight is well within a reasonably healthy amount and when I told my surgeon that I wanted to lose another 30 lbs, his comment was "I don't know where you'd lose it from." Now THAT was music to my ears and makes this extra 20-30 lbs I feel like I'm "hanging onto" a little better.  I need to have plastic surgery to remove all this "left over!"  NEED.  I have sworn that I won't have any surgery in 2014, considering I met my out of pocket last year (ankle surgery in January and herniated disc repair in my neck in August).  However, I'd make an allowance for reconstructive surgery.  It won't be fun.  It actually scares me.  But it NEEDS to happen.  After being as overweight as I was, you go into surgery knowing that when the weight is gone, there will be "leftovers."  But, I don't think until your'e really there, you understand the power of it.  It's hard knowing how much I've lost that I still can't wear the next size down of pants, purely because of the leftovers.  Very hard.  It's hard knowing that a shirt won't fit because of the leftovers on your arms.  Sucks.  It's also very expensive...the surgery.  $10,000 at least.  Who has that kind of money?  I think even if I saved it up it would take me years and years and years.  I don't want to wait years and years and years.  I can't.  It's hard.  Hard on the psyche.  I suppose I could start wearing one of those "suck 'em ups" to make it "look" a little differently, but who really likes to wear those.  I said, going into this, that it is what it is and who cares really.  That's what I tried to convince myself, but every time I get out of the shower...I care.  Big sigh.  It is what it is...and unless I win the lottery, I suppose it will be this way, for a long time.  I'm lucky to have someone who loves me...in spite of the leftovers.  Loves me as the person I am...and really does believe "it is what it is."  I'm thankful for that, and I suppose I really just need to start working on that myself.  Yep.  It is what it is. Yep.