Human Being? Or Human Doing?

April 2013

When my first child was born back in 1973, she scared the bejeezus out of me.  Not because she was so small and helpless looking - I had been around babies all my life and she didn't look all that helpless.  What was going through my mind was "Oh, NO!!! She is going to expect me to BE something!!!"  And I had a terrifying secret - I.  Wasn't.  Anything.

Through the course of my life, I have spent my time taking care of others, feeding people, giving things, helping where I could.  But in the process I neglected the one person who was always there with me - ME.  My validation all came from the outside.  I remember a dream I had once where I was in the hospital and they were removing my organs one at a time because some one needed them.  They asked if I wanted to be put under while they did it and I declined because I wanted to stay awake until I was dead. I was alone there - it didn't occur to me to call my family to be with me.  It didn't occur to me, in the dream or until many years later, that this was anything but right and proper.  I still felt that if I was breathing, I was stealing air from someone who deserved it more.

After many years and a fair bit of therapy, I have come to value some things about myself.  But, you know, when I sit down and think about it, my validation still comes from the outside. If no one is currently noticing my weight loss, I lose focus.  Unless I have something pushing me, I lose momentum and drop like a stone, and then I binge. I think this is a lot of the mental work that has to happen during this journey to be truly successful.  Once I get to goal and stay that way for a while, I will have to be just me.  There will be no more "Oh, my God!  You look so GOOOOOD girlfriend!".  And that scares me.  I will have to BE something.

So I am now working on the toughest assignment of my life - learning to be a human BEING rather than a human DOING.  I understand that the doing is part of who I am.  But, somewhere along the line, I am going to have to learn to be enough for me.  To be rich and complete and, especially, full all because of who I AM not because of what I DO.  I guess I need to figure out how to fuel my own jet, rather than hoping someone or something else will do it for me.

Who ever said that this weight loss journey thing would be easy?  It is my journey to total weightlessness.  My body is only the most visible part of the ride.