Facing my fears and respecting the scale

I am exhausted, beyond.  I haven't been sleeping well with pain in my back and my hands.  These things are not related to weight, but are injuries that are, at times, very difficult to deal with.  Yet, I'm doing the best I can.  Often times when I write my posts, I actually do so with a speech recognition program that's available on my laptop to give my poor hands a rest.  I'm grateful for the lovely technology at my disposal. 

Tonight I had my class at school that is next to the parking garage with a very high catwalk to get across.  This girl is afraid of heights, so I was parking far away and walking a long distance over to the building.  But last week, while climbing the four flights of stairs, my legs felt weak.  I don't know if that was from needing another shake or what, so I thought it was just best not to chance it this week.

The only problem is that I have the dilemma of parking on the first floor of the parking garage and walking up a very long, winding hill to get to the building.  Or, parking on the sixth floor of the parking garage and getting on the catwalk to make my way to the building.  When I was at work today, I went into the office of a friend and wanted to get her advice as to what I should do.  I knew she'd shoot it to me straight ... that's how she is (and I love that!).  In my heart, I knew she'd tell me that I needed to face the fear and go across the catwalk.  Now, I'm a rational person, not fearful of much in this world, but that catwalk seemed like I was just inviting my tummy to separate from the rest of my body.

So, following my friend's advice, I got there early and drove my car to the rooftop of the parking garage.  Gulp.  I said to myself, "Kathy, you can do this.  God is on your side.  He is not going to let you fall off of the catwalk.  Trust, trust, trust!!"  So, as I entered the catwalk, I noticed something that I didn't notice before - while it is a very narrow space given the sort of foot traffic that goes across, there is no way I'm going to fall off of it because it's mostly enclosed.  But the other part of my brain says, "WTF ... It's six stories up.  Are you insane?"  (Well, I might just be but the jury's out on that one.)  I did get out of my car and I did start walking across the catwalk.  My friend told me to not look down, but it was sort of impossible to do given how the catwalk was designed.  As I started to walk across, I felt extremely queasy and wanted to turn back around and get off the ride.  I didn't.  I talked to God the whole way across and then texted my friend that I did it once I was on the other side!  It was a great moment for me of facing such a huge fear and feeling like I could tackle it after all.  I felt like I was wearing my big-girl pants today, with a huge S etched on my chest.

When class was over, I got back on the catwalk to head back to the car.  The feeling I had in the pit of my tummy was back, except magnified like ten times.  I wanted to sprint across the catwalk, and I've never wanted to sprint across anything in my entire life.  I did make it safely across, but I decided that while I'm super proud of myself for facing this fear, the feeling I have when I walk across the bridge is so hard for me that I would rather walk up a huge hill than do that again.  That isn't really the point, though ... I was trusting that God has got my hand the whole way through.  And, truly, that's the whole point.  While I may feel alone in the fear, God is telling me, "Don't worry, Kathy ... I got this!"  Maybe someday again I'll get on that catwalk, but it's okay if I don't do that.  No matter what I go through, I always know God has my back.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, I went to the clinic and weighed in.  I lost four and a half pounds this week, making my almost seven month total 179 pounds lost.  Sooo exciting!  I am having to accept the idea that my weight loss is slowing down, much to my chagrin.  I'm not going to have weeks where I lose nine pounds any longer and I really have to be okay with that.  I guess, for me, I just wanted to keep racking up those numbers so that I could get to goal sooner.  Yet, I'm constantly reminded that this is not a sprint.  I just need to be slow and steady and, eventually, I'll get there.  I do have a fun little weight chart to share with my readers who are more visual learners like me.  This chart shows my weight loss progression and shows how close I am getting to the goal of 160 pounds.

It feels like I am actually going to get there and that's a real thrill for me.  That doesn't mean I have had the easiest time dealing with all of this change emotionally.  In fact, I have had a very difficult time.  I cried a lot today as I talked with friends at work about my struggles and the fact that I really need to look into working with a therapist to really tackle these issues individually.  I just don't want to cry, even though I know tears are incredibly healing.  I just see myself breaking down emotionally in each and every session with a therapist, but perhaps that's precisely what needs to occur.  I am already in a body size I never imagined for myself, let alone something smaller.  Being in my own skin these days is pretty difficult for me.  I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, it's just a very strange, foreign land to me and I don't seem to speak the language that everyone else is fluent in.  I'm learning and growing though, so I know everything really is going to be okay.  Trust, trust, trust.