An Open Letter to the Group

I wanted to say thank you to Sophia, Dr. Buchin and the whole group for tonight's meeting. Looking back on where I was a year ago really made a difference for me tonight.

I did not plan to go to the meeting tonight. Lately I have been feeling stalled and frustrated. I have not felt positive for at least a month now. The things that are lacking in my life have made me feel angry and resentful. I am fighting with everyone around me. I am losing sleep and feel more miserable emotionally each day. I believe in God and I know he will look after me, but I lose patience often and I just wonder what is taking him so long? I am three pounds away....THREE FREAKING POUNDS!!! ..... from the hundred pound loss mark that I set for myself, and the plateau I have been on and off of has made me crazy. Yes, I know that I am trimming down while building muscles, and maybe that is the right way to do it, but I feel like a kid who always comes in 4th place and never gets to take home a trophy.

Looking back on where I was this time last year, was mind blowing for me. I am a bookkeeper and numbers make sense to me. I had to run the numbers down with the group tonight: 97 pound loss, BMI is down from 64 to 44, blouse size is down from 30/32 to 14/16, jeans size is down from 28 to 18. These are impressive numbers! And I may not have put them all together in my head had I not gone to the meeting. And I may not have gone to the meeting had I not swallowed my pride and told Oscar I needed our "pre-meeting" coffee time together. And in between sips things started to come out, begrudgingly followed by my sarcasm and offensive remarks directed to the opposite sex. And by the time we got through all of that, the meeting was about to start, and so I went.

In the year I have been coming to these meetings, I see so many who come and go. And I wonder what happens to them? Why don't they come back? I feel sad. Someone who listened to our stories and asked for help or whom had questions, and then we never see them again. Even some of our "regulars" have fallen off. Susan, Genny, Emily, Rosa, Anna, Tony, Diane (who is recovering from double knee replacement), Jose, Peter and his wife, Michelle, and Madeline. We have not seen some of you in such a long time and you are all missed! In the course of your lives, I pray you don't forget how important it is for us to support each other and to begin to support those who are behind us on the journey. Of course I understand that lives are sometimes difficult to manage and it is hard to get to a meeting when you have a kids to take care of, or a different schedule or live a longer distance from the office. And it is summertime. People are on vacation and everyone is trying to take as much advantage of the weather before it gets cold again. But I call on all of you to look at yourselves in the mirror, see how your body and your face have changed and remember where your life was 1 year ago and how you got to where you are today, and then remember all of your friends here. Then pick up your calendar and mark off your two meeting of the month. And don't forget there is a "1 year Post op" class that also needs support from some of you others who have made it past your first year. Think about what pearls of wisdom you all can share with each other as support. Not to mention what you can give to each of us as we enter that realm of our lives.

I love this group. I need this group. And I want this group to survive because, we have the power to guide others down this difficult and frightening road. It is our way to "pay it forward."

"Aim for the company of Immortals"