I began this website because at the time, I needed it. I needed a place to write out all of my feelings, because the escape was necessary and healing. I look back on the posts I did over the course of a couple years and I see someone who had made great strides, but was still so uncertain and operating from a place of fear.
A lot has changed over the year I wasn’t posting. I said enough and took my health back and have lost over a hundred pounds. That’s something I’ve struggled to talk about here. I have tried several times, and each time I had to stop because the words weren’t flowing the way I wanted them to. I’ve written about hard topics before, but this has been my most difficult one to put in words to date. Each time, I had to stop because I was crying too hard to continue.
I brushed my weight loss off at first, even as people began to notice and comment on it. I refused to tell anyone my ultimate goal. I had lost some weight before, and always gained it back, but something had shifted in me and I knew this was different. As the time went on and I edged closer to my goal, my cautious optimism gave way to joy.
Yet, despite this, I guarded myself.
I was so comfortable in that space of being an “anonymous big girl” that when I shed that outward appearance like an old winter coat, I found myself feeling naked and exposed. I wanted to protect her, this new version of me. I was afraid to share; what if somehow the sharing led to losing her?
My body has become something different. It’s been my home for my entire life, and it’s wondrously smaller, stronger, healthier. It’s also got stretch marks, and new, humbling angles that are only now beginning to become familiar to me.
It didn’t change who I am fundamentally as a person. I am still someone who cries when she’s in an art museum, who greets bugs as her friends, who lives in books, and has a dry sense of humor.
I am both the same and so much more than who I was. I found a determination and love for myself I didn’t know I had. I no longer worry that sharing will somehow steal that journey from me. I lived it. I did it. That fact resides with me and no one can ever take away what I’ve accomplished.
It’s mine.
Yes. This feels right. This is how I was meant to write this post.
5 Comments
Mom
Loved you then; love you now.
You have accomplished something amazing and life changing – not just the weight loss but the metamorphosis, both physical and emotional has been pretty incredible. You’re a rock star my darling girl.
Loved you then; love you now. ?
George David Frederick
Wish I knew you in real life Sara but I’ve been here all along and I have to say, I agree with your mom. Loved you then, love you now. I never saw you as overweight. Always thought you were beautiful just the way you were. I did sense that you were self conscious because you only ever showed your face which was fine by me cause in my eyes, you couldn’t have been prettier. I’m so glad that you are comfortable in your own skin now. I hope you get everything you want out of life…you deserve it. Thanks for letting some of us strangers tag along ! ❤️❤️❤️ George.
Thirteen Doors
I subscribe to your blog. To you. I have neglected this site for quite a while. I randomly saw your post in my emails.
I think you’re amazing. Beautiful and talented. I don’t think you need protected, though everyone likes to feel safe. I think you need to be supported, no matter what.
I offer mine. You’ve got this. You’re killing it. You’re unstoppable, even from yourself. And, you’re not new. This is you, just as that was you. You are the sum of all your experiences.
You add up to an amazing and talented woman. Don’t forget! Though i suspect you have lots of people who will remind you. ❤️??????
Jordan
???
Carter
Personal successes and transformations like yours take bravery and condign strength, Sara. I salute you for getting there and doing it the healthy way. My challenge has always been that I hate working out, and I can’t run because I’d soon wear out a knee (my sister and I inherited thin cartilege from our dad). Then a hernia and fouled-up surgery put building strength further out of reach (but somehow I moved house twice in six months without injury, and worked circles around much younger people…). We all do what we can, but you apparently transformed your outlook and physique. It’s amazing.