Friday, March 23, 2012

177.6 (Happy Birthday to me...)

Hiya, folx.  This is a brief one.

Tomorrow I turn 44.  The past twelve months have brought so many massive changes; job, relationships, practice, housing.  Massive stress and wonderful peace, confusion and clarity, suffering and joy.  Somehow through it all, I kept going.  If you asked me how I did it, I'd have to reply with something simple and kinda stupid; "I dunno.  I just kept my head down and kept at it, I guess."  That's not particularly earth-shattering wisdom, is it?

Well, in my life, that's actually a bit of a quantum shift.  In many aspects of my life, I have great strength and resolve.  I can suck it up and get through almost anything.  But when it came to my own health--and weight specifically--that's decidedly not been the case.  Somewhere in the past few years, something changed.  The quitting sorta just stopped.  I guess I quit quitting.  And in doing so, in the past year, I've dropped an additional 70-some pounds.  I now weigh 177lbs.  I've lost about 114 lbs over-all in the last three years, and over 160 since I maxed out at 340-something back at the millennium.  114-160lbs?  Depending on stature, that's a whole damn additional person!  To think that I ever got around that way...

It's taken a long time, and it's been hard, at times damn hard, no question.  But it can be done, without surgery, without quackery, without self-punnishment and without shame.  The only things that you need--the only things--are self-love, patience and persistence.  Oh, and a vigilant, diligent practice of suspending the judging mind.  Easy?  Hell no.  Possible?  Absolutely.

I am my own greatest gift.

Happy birthday to me.  The new me.  The old me.  The only me I know.  The one I meet anew every morning I wake.

Grant me serenity.
I'll accept the things I cannot change.
Give me the courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.