In lieu of a Thursday Review....

I thought I'd share with you a little (well actually a BIG) something...

Today I had to go to the store to get something fixed.

I had purchased The Wonder One a new pair of 501's and when he was taking them out of the bag I noted that at the bottom, near the hem, they hadn't removed the store security sensor.  Bastids.  Which meant I had to go all the way back to the mall to have them remove the blasted thing.  This would be the second time today I'd been there.  While taking care of The Wonder One is a chore I don't mind doing, it was a pain in the butt because gas prices had shot up this morning $0.30 a gallon!  This had happened in just one day!  Thirty cents!  Which by and large isn't normally a big deal, but when we're talking over the course of a year, thirty cents truly isn't a big deal.  When we're talking over night?  It's a big deal.

So I get back to Macy's to have the sale's clerk remove the sensor from the jeans and to make sure that the store maintenance crew took care to fix the security system so that bigger, higher priced items weren't walking out the door and we the honest customers weren't footing the bill for it.  To thank me for my patience the store management refunded me some money back to my account. I thanked the young man who helped me and was on my way out the door to walk around a bit before leaving.

Off to Lane Bryant I went.  I thought I would look to see about a new pair of jeans that actually fit seeing as how pretty much all of my other jeans were now a size or so too big.  Since I'd started this journey I've not really known what size I wore.  If I ever really knew to begin with.  When I last bought a pair of jeans at my largest I bought a size 28.  Those jeans now when I wear them, I can barely keep them on.  So it was with the intention of going in and getting a pair of 26's.  Figuring I'd gone down a size.

So I grabbed the size I needed and headed to the fitting room. I put them on and stepped out to look in the big mirror.  *click* ..........."grrrrr" I thought to myself as I realized I locked myself out of my dressing room.

I turned to a sales associate to be let back into my dressing room and she asked "Honey, do you need another size?"

"I dunno, why?" I replied.  She gave me that look that said "you don't get out much do you?" She then told me that I was wearing a pair of jeans that was at least a size if not two sizes to big.  All I could do was look at her dumbfounded!  Was she kidding me?  I mean seriously?!

Off she went in search of the wash and size I needed and in came a different sales associate with an even smaller size!  So I ended up going from what I thought was one size down another two more sizes!  When I was handed a size 24 to put on I started to cry.  I mean weep full on, tears just streaming down my face.  I'd not been in a 24 in.......I don't rightly know how long!  The second sales associate (the first one having long since disappeared) confused dashed off to get me tissues, not quite understanding why I was so emotional.  She thought I was crying because I was in a size that was to large, not knowing that I was in a size that I'd not been in, in nearly 20 years.  **Update ~~ I came back to update because I was rereading this post and something didn't look right.  I went upstairs to grab the jeans I bought to verify the size I bought.  The size I bought were in fact a size........are you sitting down?  Hold onto your hats....a size 22!!!  That was the last size I was before I was pregnant!  That was 27 years ago....yeah, longer than some of you are old.  Quit laughing. lol  Okay, you can laugh, but only for a minute.....now you can stop.....Wow, so this is even bigger than I realized...

When in fact it was only just a year ago that I'd had a very nearly similar type of meltdown (in the same dressing room ironically) but for the opposite reason because I couldn't fit into anything because I was at my largest ever.  Weighing very nearly the most I'd weighed in my life at 286 pounds.  Feeling very bloated and looking the same, not being able to do much nor was I able to verbalize my frustration, I just did what I always did.

I ate.  I took it out on myself, I internalized it and I ate.

Thankfully since then I've learned a lot about how to handle my emotions and about how not to internalize them.  I'm still having trouble getting the weight off.  It's not coming off as fast as one would want it to, but that's okay, at least it's not coming back ON.  All I can do is all I can do.  Each day is a lesson to learn from and to move forward from.  That's how I'm going to keep it off.  So I'm doing the best thing for me that I can which is being here with you cheerleaders and you're being here with me to cheer me on has been awesome.

I thank you for that.

Now we celebrate!