With Much Joy

Today I feel so, so grateful. Obesity has been my lot in life since childhood. I think weight will be a companion of mine for a long time. But today, I just feel deeply grateful for change. For whatever reason. I don't know if I am doing any of this right. I have tried so many ways for so much of my life to change. That struggle to change and that consistent lack of progress is so defeating at times. Today I am grateful for progress, for movement, for change. 

There is just so much less pain if this can really happen. I want to bask in the joy of change today. It is such a long road and has been such a minute, personal and detailed journey that today I want to stop and look behind me and be grateful for the lessons and the hard-won wisdom and then look ahead at the mountains to climb and the challenges to face and to stop and be grateful for this little meadow on my path with its bubbling brook of joy and its horizon of sunshine. I am so grateful to be whole. To have survived. 

Maybe I am too melodramatic about all of this but this intensely personal journey has at its core made me question my worth as an individual. Say what you want “It should not” or “don’t ever question your worth” or whatever but it has. Be it society, environment, culture or just my own perspective, my overweight status has made me feel like less of a person, less worthwhile, less in entirety. Unable to claim my full rights and privileges in this world. Even though they have always been there for me to claim, I have felt handicapped and unable to reach them. I am not saying weight loss helps me to claim those rights—I hope that work has been done long before now. What I am saying is that I am grateful to be moving in a direction physically where I am not fighting for my very worth as a individual each day. This road is so much less painful. So much less fraught with turmoil. Not laced with thorns.

I am grateful for this peace.