Wednesday October 3, 2007

Lots of milestones were reached this last weekend–some were significant, others not so much.

The first milestone came Friday, which was the second anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. Many GBS patients consider their “surgeriversary” to be as important if not more important than their actual birthday. I don’t go that far, but I do understand the sentiment. After all, the day I had GBS is the day I CHOSE to live and to get my life BACK. Anyways, I have to be honest. I wasn’t looking forward to the anniversary at all. I was wanting to see my friends in Tulsa and have John meet them, but I had my trepidations. The biggest reason for not really looking forward to the milestone is I’ve felt like such a failure. I’ve only lost about 25 pounds this year, if even that. Compared to 115 pounds the first year, the second year’s weight loss seemed pathetic. Like I was wasting the gift I had been given through the surgery. I felt like a failure and I was scared about seeing my surgeon.

Well as it turned out, I had a pretty good visit and surgeriversary. Not only was my surgeon relatively pleased with my loss, but I started realizing my success could be measured in more ways than just pounds. My first year after surgery was filled with weight-loss milestones but my second year was filled with life milestones. I went back to school, I had the courage to decide to change careers and I’ve come to a lot of realizations about my self esteem. The two biggest areas where I succeeded this year was in relationships. I worked this year to develop a real relationship with God and I started dating. In the dating process I managed to fall in love with a wonderful, Godly man with whom I hope I can spend the rest of my life. I’d say that’s a pretty successful year. I may not have lost weight, but I gained parts of my life back that I’ll cherish forever.

That actually leads me to the weekend’s other big milestone. John and I hit the six month mark in our dating relationship. The six months is significant to us for its own reasons but I feel like, in a way, we have reached some invisible hump. We’ve worked on our relationship and now we are on the “down hill slide” towards becoming engaged. We’ve worked hard to develop a strong, Godly relationship and are reaping the benefits of that work.

While not major milestones, there were a lot of other important “firsts” that happened over the weekend. These include:
-John and me taking our first overnight trip together (even though he stayed in a hotel and I stayed with friends);
-Me meeting some of John’s family for the first time;
-John meeting some of my friends for the first time; and
-The first time we’ve left our kitten overnight by herself.

All in all, it was a pretty great weekend.