Today is a momentous day. I had my gastric by-pass surgery October 24, 2012. Today I am 4 days short of the six month mark, Today I surpassed a major milestone.
Today, I weigh 197. I have lost 101 pounds in six months.
I can hardly believe it. I am overjoyed that I have passed this milestone, but I have to admit I have been struggling recently. Not really with the weight loss. I have been losing weight pretty steadily.
I have been feeling this restlessness and a growing emptiness inside me. I’m not sure what it is, exactly. I think part of it may be loneliness. I have lived nearly all of my adult life alone and on my own. I have watched all of my friends and family around me build lives, get married, have children while I have stagnated.
But I do not think what I am feeling is just loneliness. I have been really struggling over the past few weeks to define it. I have had many semi-sleepless night going through my emotions and everything I have been through. I think part of my introspection is a result of this blog. I also think part of it has to do with several of the personal essays I have written recently. I have spent much of the last year really delving into my life. I have examined many reasons why my life has turned out the way it has.
Ultimately though, I think this restlessness and emptiness are necessary. I have this growing, overwhelming desire to fill my life, that emptiness with something substantial, but what that is I really do not know. I’m not sure that I can really narrow down that desire to just one thing. It feels more like I want to fill it by experiencing everything.
I think the emptiness was always there. I just buried with food, video games, anger, and depression instead of dealing with the problems in my life. I let that behavior go on for far too long.
This surgery, this weight loss has given me the opportunity to change all of this. The question is, what do I do now?