When I wrote this [ https://www.vizionzfromthebottom.com/2013/12/12/trouble-with-the-curve/ ] back in 2013 it caused a back and forth with the DC troll. The fake pimp semi obsessed with me and my inability to let his fuck shit float on Beyonce’s Internet unchallenged. The good news is that I blocked him in every electronic way imaginable, and while it still might create a response from the former cellar dweller that feud is pretty much dead. I killed him with my words and walked on with my life. I didn’t walk away from the issue though because I cannot leave my body behind.

I weighed in the other day at 272. I feel fatter than that, but it’s consistent with where I’ve been for a year. It is not where I was in May of 2020. I arrived in Philly I was about 240 give or take. 30+ pounds of difference and almost 10 years of time have resulted in different results than the last time I took up this conversation. It was to be expected in a way, the medical and scientific data on it says that because I am and have been obese for the bulk of my life the medical consequences can be what I am experiencing right now.

The hypertension was the first development. I can’t assign a specific cause to it, what I can document though is that on the days I don’t have to clock into the J O B the numbers on the meter look significantly different. Causation/correlation and all that jazz.

The diabetes wasn’t something I saw coming. One might say that the months of hypertension left me vulnerable, and while that is true I haven’t helped myself with my current weight.

So for the first time in a while I have to take a look at my relationship with food, my approach to my health, my vizion of a future and adjust my life. Not my behavior but my life. To ‘save’ my life I have to alter it, that sounds like a simple choice. Not unlike the discussion in 2013 it is not as simple as one might think. Or perhaps this is just me Nicole’ing the shit out of things and making it more complicated than it needs to be.

I had to admit to myself that this body was created for my protection and for my ego.

From before my rape at the age of 9, the body I lived in felt unsafe. I would learn quickly that having more weight meant when the blows arrived I could sustain me more and there was never any shortage of the more. After my rape it became a part of the way to make myself less desirable. Now as a 9 year old I can’t say I understood the complexity of desire. Shit at almost 49 I still struggle at times, so a lord only knows what my 9 year old brain was formulating. It became a default – a go to – and the answer to avoiding the trauma of those who felt entitled to my body despite my objection. It didn’t work, but I did it anyhow.

As I roamed the streets in my 20s, it became a way to prove that I wasn’t any of the things or ways those around me described me. It was my first action to take back my esteem, define myself, and come to a resolution that I was worthy and loveable and I did not need alteration. The stomach was flatter, the nipples pointed less south, the booty did booty stuff and the thighs rubbed together but I went out and claimed and conquered. I tore threw men and women savagely to prove I was every bit as ____ as a woman with a 21″ waist. With each proverbial notch on the belt, I walked into my power and settled into the path to self love and discovery.

After the arrival of the boy, my Clyde, my body wasn’t the same. That sexy beast who existed before was now breastfeeding and there was a flap post delivery. Combine that with the concept that there was only “ONE” for me and I was in a constant holding pattern for over a decade I didn’t that to address what I looked like. The “ONE” didn’t care what I weighed. I should have caught on that there was something ‘off’ when I was winded after walking up 4 flights of steps to the apartment but both he and I chalked it up to nervous anxiety at being alone with him. There was a part of that there as well I am sure. I can look back and recall that there was always the underlying terror that this would be the last time and he would vanish again. And well that happened so I wasn’t totally wrong.

That Tumblr was right around my 40th birthday. Even the most well adjusted of the female sees that birthday coming and has feelings. Let’s be real, I was not the most well adjusted of the females.

I was fighting bad cholesterol so I didn’t turn into Bonnie. I won. I haven’t had an issue with cholesterol since. Even with the current health stuff the cholesterol is not one of them, and won’t be if I can tame the insulin deficit.

One might think this would be simple. Change or die. In that bare bones description, it is. I know that just yesterday I said that I was unsure if I wanted to live. I woke this morning knowing I did not want to die by my own hand. That could change in an hour, such is the nature of me, but I am rolling with it currently.

This time feels a little different. The stakes a little higher. They aren’t, and I have to say that out loud.

There is nothing different with this new development than any of the others I’ve met successfully in the past. I’ve done it before which proves it can be done, so the negative Nicole with the excuses and caution can go kick the largest of rocks barefoot.

Still I have to unpack in places other than here, why this body was acceptable, and what it gave me.

I just said to my little one it was a cloaking device. No one sees a fat woman, until she wants to be seen.

There is more there as well, but that is a big one, that altering this body also means altering the way I am seen. I don’t always want to be seen.

I haven’t even gotten into how this impacts the Daddy person and my relationship. I can admit though that it is in the top 3 reasons why I am rejecting the idea of surgery yet again, like I did almost 10 years ago. The body on the other side of WLS is not one he would choose, and with that is the understanding of the change of our connection. I am not so blind, or as he might say romantic, to lie to myself and say our relationship would remain the same. It would not. Would he still be in my life? Most likely, at this point we are connected until death. Would he still be Daddy? No.

Would he ‘leave’ me? In his own words just now:

” You are correct at 121 pounds I would not be physically interested in you unless there was just something physically about that that I wouldn’t want to pass up. I can think of at least 3 things in the moment.”

That is not an I will want you forever, regardless. It is his way of saying shut up, get to work and stop worrying about some shit that hasn’t happened. That right there is a part of why I love him. He won’t say the things in the way they get said in the Hollywood RomCom, but he doesn’t need to for me to understand him.

So this grocery order – no red meat – lots of green leafy shit. Almost no fruit. I have to watch that because I recall sending Bonnie to the hospital after she had a fruit salad. The elliptical in the front room is calling. I haven’t answered her today but I will before she gets to shouting.

I can do this.

What I can also do is admit that there is more to my size than the fact I like chocolate cake.