Owning My Own Story

Any time big events occur in life--whether they be marriage, birth, relocation, death, or (as in my case,) a health crisis, things change pretty drastically.  The transformation process can be quite scary at times.  Many times you have some preparation for what lies ahead but if you have a sudden health crisis, it's like someone comes along one day and rips the rug out from where you're standing.  Suddenly you're left, floating in a vast sea of unknowns trying to piece together your new existence.  Many times you are also trying to cling to and put back together what once was.  In my case, that sure knowledge that "I'm a healthy person."  The lie I lived by, what I constantly told myself was, "I might be overweight but overall I'm healthy."  It took the BIG monster of meningitis and truly being knocked off my feet for several months for me to awaken to my own new, raw truth.

For me to accept that this is my story.  All of it; the good, the bad, the mundane, the exciting, the terrifying, the overwhelming, the knowing of my own lived truth.  I first had to completely and utterly fall apart.  It's pretty overwhelming even putting that in writing.  I'm still stuck somewhere between the depression and acceptance stages of the grieving process when it comes to what once was.

And I've chosen to add even more change and uncertainty into the mix by having weight loss surgery.  I've knowingly opened myself up to another year of inevitable ups and downs and uncharted territory.  I suppose the conclusion I'm coming to with all of this is that I have to own it all.  Every part of my story is also, at least in a small way, a part of me.  At the end of the day, change is the one thing that stays the same in this world - it's our one constant.  And yet, as the famous Simon and Garfunkle song, "The Boxer" says, "Even after changes we are more or less the same..."

Anyway, for what it's worth - for better or worse - I'm here.  This is me, owning my own story and embracing my changes as much as I know how.  I am my own work in progress.