Nothing to See Here…

I got on a plane yesterday.

I could not make the two ends of my seat-belt meet in order to secure the buckle.

I had to summon my courage, swallow my humiliation, and go ask for a seat-belt extender.

This is something I have never had to do before.  Perhaps, in the back of my mind, I had this vague thought that was something like “Well, it could be worse.  I could require a seat-belt extender in order to take a flight.”

But now that thought is vanished.  So what do I hold over myself now?  “Well, it could be worse.  They could require a crane to lift you out of your bed.”??? 

No, it could not be worse. 

Well, sure, I guess it could but I am not sure I could handle it right now.  I’m not handling the seat-belt extender thing too well.  I cried for the first hour of my flight.  Oh, not racking sobs that would call attention to me.  They were those hot, bitter tears that just slip out with no permission, the tears that betray my desire not to cry.  Just another way I cannot get my body to do what I need and wish it to do.  Same shit, different day.

I am now firmly back in the territory of seeking information on weight loss surgery.  Lap-band.  Gastric bypass.  Whatever, I don’t much care.  Something that forces my hand, that says “There is no going back now.  The emergency exit is that way and I suggest you take the most direct and expeditious route to it.” 

It terrifies me though for a million reasons.  I don’t think it will be easy - I think it will  be damn hard.  I wonder how I’ll hold up under the stress.  I wonder how my marriage will hold up.  I wonder if I am such a failure that I would even fail at this.  Others have - John Popper gained his weight back, Carney Wilson gained much of hers back.  If I had weight loss surgery and managed to lose and then re-gain, I don’t know how I’d survive that.  I wonder if I would lose all the weight and then my husband would stop finding me attractive.  I wonder if I’d feel bitter and angry on Thanskgiving when I could not indulge in the feast.  

As much as I fear failing, I think I might fear succeeding even more.  What if I lose the weight and things don’t get better - all the things I currently blame the weight for.  What if I’m still tired with no libido and bad knees and high blood pressure and suddenly I can no longer blame it on the weight.  What then, once my built-in scapegoat is gone, what then?

In spite of all of that, the questions, the fears, the concerns - in spite of all of that, there is something I fear even more.  I am afraid to get to a place where I’m not bothered by asking for the seat-belt extender.  Where doing that isn’t some sort of a wake-up call for me.  

I live in no man’s land on this topic, in the ether.  I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what I believe, I don’t know how to succeed, I no longer have any appetite for failure or for fighting.  I’m mired in hopelessness alternating with numbness. 

Here is what I know:  weight loss surgery has a very high success rate.  It would be hard, extremely hard, and it would force me to deal with all the stuff I’m avoiding or denying right now.  But right now is really hard too.  My health issues abound, my emotional and psychological issues, sleep and sex and everything else.  So the choice seems to be:  difficulty and failure in achieving goals (which is where I sit now, and have for so very many years) or difficulty and success in achieving goals (which seems to be what weight loss surgery promises).

Risk, you say?  You cannot consider the risk of surgery in a vacuum.  You must consider the risk of surgery as compared to the risk of no surgery, of status quo.  Don’t accept the status quo, you say?  OK, even then - apply a confidence factor to success in the manual way without surgery and then compare that risk to the surgery risk.

I’m out of town on business this week and next but I intend to seek consultation when I get home.

Buckle up, with or without a seat-belt extender.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.