Waiting to start living

I started a new job in the Spring. In fact I started the new job specifically to get the surgery. That's part of the 10-year journey I mentioned in an earlier post. Lots of companies hide behind the excuse that it cost more for the surgery especially if there are complications. That's baloney. There are enough varieties of the surgery for a company to limit their employees to one surgery, a few select surgeons and approve only those with the highest weights or BMI's, or only those who suffer with certain co-morbidity's. Imagine you have someone who has high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis and they are 100 or more pounds overweight. Sure you can play the old southern patriarch looking out for the good of all the field hands, and put them through YOUR ideal weight control program. But in the end I will bet you the plantation that the company is gonna be out more when its all over. I am not saying they don't work. People lose weight, but as I've told my family every doggone time they come to me with a new diet someone they know had used to lose lots of weight, "anyone can drop the weight, come back to me when after 2-5 years they still have the majority of the weight off". So you have company newsletters displaying workers who lost 25, 75 and even some centennial pounds. When the outward incentives and attention are gone, what happens? Each case is different but for those that gain the weight back, you run the risk of now having to pay for therapy, or lost wages due to depression. You also have to pay for illnesses that re-occur and typically its worse, because they gain it back quicker and more of it. Bariatric surgery is not a miracle cure and 5% find a way to gain the weight back. However, 5% is a fairly decent number, when you consider that some experts say 95% of those who lose on a diet gain it back, that your typical dieter can expect to gain back 10% of what they lose, and worse of all 31% not only gain the weight back, but quicker and more.
Use those numbers the next time a well meaning lover, friend, relative or busy body brings you the latest greatest diet. Just know though that they will eventually trump you with "I don't want you to die" or the knife twister "I can't stand by and watch you kill (do this to) yourself". At which point, if you have not worked through some of your issues, you will dutifully take that "eat all the rhubarb you want and still lose weight" diet and go out to by rhubarb.
As I was saying before I got off on this tangent, I changed jobs to have weight loss surgery. My two previous employers specifically wrote an exclusion for weight loss surgery. I am rushing through the approval process and all along the way I meet doctors, nurses, psychologist etc, who are as excited as me that this is about to happen for me. Each one talks about the drastic changes that will occur in my life. Friends tell me the same, and many are excited. I, of course am excited as well...I think.
If you have ever had a monkey of any type on your back you know that mindset of "I could be a contender if I could only get this monkey off my back." I call it waiting to start living. My mom would say that she stayed with my alcoholic father because kids need a father, and that when her mother who stayed with us passed away she was going to leave. I went off to college and granny died but she went no where. In fact she was looking forward to spending her golden years with him. She now says something similar about her place of worship. Don't hold your breathe. My good friend says he'll say no to people who impose on him one day. Since he reads this, I'll save my thoughts for him personally. My old co-worker says she's gonna leave her job when she finishes school, but she takes 1-2 semesters off at a time. I say that I will get the love I want from a partner and get married and live happily ever after when I lose the weight. I've turned down two proposals and dumped 2 nice guys along the way. I've been in several relationships that any idiot could see were dead ends from the beginning. We are waiting to start living, and its a powerful dream. Its also more exciting and tantalizing than the mundane stuff that living life is made of. It allows us to remain cordial to people and things we really shouldn't even give the time of day to. Leaving my father would have meant ostracizing herself in a world of families. None of my mom's siblings have ever divorced, no matter what. Men have left, but the women waited faithfully for them to return. You got to have some pretty big ones to buck that kinda trend. If you are under 40 its no biggie to change jobs, but slower baby boomers still remember their parents retirement parties and the names of their parents co-workers. Besides my old co-worker is the first in her family to land a "good" job. You don't just walk away from that. My friend would have to explore who and what else he is and what his value is to those who impose if he told them no. An "acquaintance" of mine has a Master's in making you feel guilty for telling her no, AND because of her victim persona she gets others upset with you for telling her no. Who wants to be bothered with that? Real commitment to a real relationship means facing the possibility of someone knowing me and rejecting what they find. Why would anyone want to move out of the waiting to start living mode?
When I really start thinking of living life after surgery, I think about not having weight as a defense against unwanted attention, my chances of being a victim of crime increases, if I fail at something or if someone doesn't like me I can't blame it on the weight. What will I fixate on if I am not dealing with my current diet, the diet I plan to go on, the latest book I'm reading on space, earthworms, the reduction of nuclear weapons and how it relates to why I gain weight? What on earth will I do without this lifelong companion and nemesis?!!!!!!.
Hopefully I will have the courage to find out who I really am, what I really want, my habits both good and bad, my negative emotions that I've hidden behind layers of fat, I'll hear my real voice saying what I really think and feel, and most importantly maybe I'll know what its like for someone else to know and love me for just plain ole me.