"Have You Heard About the Lonesome Loser?"

Another post about loss. Sort of.

It's been marinating for a couple of weeks now but I wasn't, and still am not, sure if I could do it justice.

First of all, and perhaps I should have led with this, I would like to apologize to those of you who have been googling or searching and have found a blog about a middle-aged, over-weight, whiny chick instead of a hot porn site! I got so excited about how many hits my blog got last week that I clicked on the site that was sending people here and I was taken aback when topless women popped up! Let's just say that some things are better left a mystery!

Speaking of mysteries, I have been getting asked a lot about how much weight I have lost and I am sorry to say that I still have no earthly idea. That, like who my readers are, shall remain a mystery.

When I began this whole journey, I knew that it was a complete lifestyle change and not a diet or a weight loss program. It may be difficult for many to grasp the concept. The weight loss is a happy by-product of some life-altering changes I have made.

So what has been turning over around in my head these past few weeks is not about size or weight or  ups and downs on the scale. It's about how I feel about me.

I feel smaller.

Strange thing to say when my foot print is most likely still the same as it ever was. I am a large person and I need more space than the average gal. However, in my mind, I feel completely transformed.

I am transformed, if not completely.

Let's start with the losses. What have I lost since this journey began?

I have lost half my wardrobe because it is too big. I have lost (according to most of the tags in my clothes) two, three, or four sizes depending on what type of clothing you are talking about. I just donated two more bags of clothing this past week.

I needed to buy different bras and underwear because those things need to fit.

I have lost my craving for processed foods, for fatty, non-nutritive food, for decadent cakes and cookies and pies and well you get the idea. I am not saying that I wouldn't enjoy a chocolate chip cookie or some ice cream once in awhile but I would prefer to know that they were made with non-gmo, organic, whole ingredients when possible. I now crave fruits and vegetables and water and whole, raw nuts and grains.

It doesn't bother me so much when someone is having lasagna or fried chicken or take-out from a burger joint. I

I have also lost my obsession with food. I no longer spend my days off devising my menus and grocery lists and trying to figure out what I am going to eat each day so I don't slip up. There is no slipping up any more. I just shop and cook and eat and clean up. If I choose to dine out, I try to make the right kind of choices and ask for sauces or butter or the like to be on the side or left out completely. I even order take out from my local pizza joint and once in a blue I'll have sushi. Last night, we had sushi delivered and they sent me the wrong thing. I do not eat eel. So I ate an egg roll. I made the decision but even as I was eating it I decided that I would just eat the inside and then I panicked because I could taste all that oil and I didn't know what kind of oil it was so I ate the inside of half an egg roll. And then I made a salad.

Not too long ago, I would have eaten two egg rolls and an entree and some steamed dumplings and God knows what else and been totally sick after I ate but still had dessert. Today, something reflexively stops me from doing that.

So this must be what it feels like to not have a compulsion to eat, well, everything.

What have I gained?

I have gained confidence, faith in myself to make the right choices (fro yo for dinner is OK once in a blue). I have gained a cheering section from my co-workers to my readers (all seven of you, porn searchers notwithstanding), new wardrobe choices that have been hanging in my closet for years. I have gained the ability to breathe. That was a biggie. One day I realized that I was breathing like a normal person. I have gained the option to shop in regular stores (still in plus sizes but I don't have to go to specific plus size specialty stores, most of which charge an flabby arm and a dimpled thigh!) I have gained income by not spending all my money on someone else's cooking (Gino, The King, The Colonel, Ronald, Papa John, Chung Wah) and eating out.

It's strange how straightening out one, huge area in my life has brought order to so much of the rest of my life.

I have been walking and am up to four miles now without really trying too hard. I will start adding in short sprints of "jogging" this week. 

I am not scale obsessed like I used to be when trying to lose weight. That trying thing really struck me. I no longer try to lose weight. I eat healthy and I exercise. The weight is coming off all on it's own and it seems to be at a good pace. Some weeks I feel my clothes are looser and looser and some weeks I feel the same. But I never feel bigger. And I always feel better. Each week I notice another little ache or pain has gone away. Or I am sleeping better. Or I don't get headaches any more. Or I had a sore throat and very red tonsils but it went away and I didn't lose any time from work because it turned in to a nasty cold then bronchitis etc.

On those long walks, I am really taking stock and facing some demons that I thought I buried long ago. They are still there and I am trying to deal with them one at a time. I am trying to be brave and open up each door very slowly.
I'm a fixer and a doer and I want to make it all great without waiting to see if it all supposed to actually be great.

Control.

I could spend my days trying to control the outcome of every aspect of my life and that would most likely leave me sitting on the sofa binge-eating my way through every take-out menu ever published! Gaining control of your life, to me, means realizing that you are not actually in control of it. All you can control is how you react to what life throws at you. If the pitch is in the dirt, don't swing.

"Happiness is a Warm Puppy" Charles M. Shulz

I have been thinking about grief and loss a lot lately.

Recently, some very dear friends of mine lost their most beloved pet. Their dog was sixteen years old so he had been part of their lives for a very long time. More than half their son's life.

When my cat died she was twenty-one. She saw me through the loss of both my parents, some rocky times in my marriage, several moves, weight loss and weight gain, and a couple of surgeries. She wasn't nice to other people but I knew she loved me.

When you own and love a pet, your habits become about that pet. Your sleep patterns, what you do when you get home from work, even the position you lie in bed is adjusted for that furry family member. They end up owning you right back.

When a pet dies, as with any family member, you feel the grief and loss completely. However, we don't get to give our pets the same kind of send-off that humans get.

When a person we love dies, whether it is suddenly or after prolonged illness, we go through stages of grief.

Maybe we plan their funeral, pick out music for a church service, order flowers, call friends and family, call the newspaper, prepare tons of food. People come in and out of your house at all hours. It's almost like the preparations we make for other, more happy events in our lives. Just add grief. It's a busy time and you don't have much time to dwell on the loss. The grief seeps in gradually.

When a pet dies, it is much more solitary. Depending on whether or not the pet dies of natural causes or we make that all too difficult decision to humanely end their suffering, the immediate family gathers, we say goodbye, and we cry and then it's pretty much business as usual. You don't get paid bereavement time. You don't even get the finality of a funeral or church service. Maybe the vet takes care of the whole thing or, after a couple of weeks, you have a container with their remains. Some people choose to take them to a pet cemetery, some choose a sunny spot in their yards, but we are expected to grieve and move on almost immediately.

But, after the first couple of days, when we come home from work or the grocery store, our house seems much more empty than it did before. Our hearts are broken. We are grieving. 

So why risk it?

One of my co-workers and I were having lunch and discussing grieving a pet's loss and she said that was why she doesn't think she would ever get a pet for her children.

I said, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

I have been thinking about that ever since. It could easily be said the other way round, "nothing ventured, nothing lost," right?

So why do we put ourselves out there and risk loving a pet? I think it is a valuable lesson to teach all of us about grief and loss but also about unconditional love and joy.

I look back to my first pet, Guy. He was a French Poodle. He was a bit of a misfit, though. As were all of my pets, I think.

He lost part of his ear, he chased cars. But he was a great dog. He was well behaved. Well, except for that time he bit my brother's cheek. In Guy's defense, I believe my brother was forcing the dog to wear his underpants at the time. He had  been clipped by cars a couple of times but he never got seriously hurt. Then, one day, he got hit. My mother was at work and my sister had to deal with the whole thing on her own. Their was a nice, elderly man who lived in our apartment complex and I remember his kindness when my sister came and told us what happened. But I loved that dog and I still remember him and all his quirks. He loved us unconditionally.

Then there was Chip, Chippy. Or as we lovingly called him, Poopie or Poop or Poopie Head. My mother called him Shithead. Come to think of it she called all our dogs Shithead. She had a theory that it was all in how you said it not what  you said. For that reason, I called my cat Fuckface.

Let's face it, many people out there are not pet owners or maybe they don't even like animals or the messes they make. 

I think pet ownership is the great metaphor for life. People break our hearts every day. They break up with us, they never call or write (or text), they do or say hurtful things, they manipulate us. And still we love.

All pets want from us is food and water and shelter and love. Just like children. They are not manipulative or petty. They don't betray us. OK, maybe they chew up our sofa or poop in our shoe or knock that beloved picture frame over and it seems calculated and spiteful. But they are not deliberately malicious. They just want our attention. They grow old. They get sick. They die.

Isn't that life in a nutshell? I learned grief at a fairly early age because Guy got hit by a car. I remember my mother being very gentle with us when it happened and letting me sleep in her bed.

So risking it, risking our hearts this way-adopting that dog, winning that goldfish, rescuing that kitten, has a big pay off. It teaches us how to love and accept love unconditionally. It teaches us responsibility for another living being. It teaches us that, while opening up your heart to all the joy and heartache love can bring, if you don't sow the seeds, you don't reap the harvest. And, yes it teaches us to grieve.

But let's not forget, it also teaches us how to heal.