Barbie girl here. It's been a while huh?
Since I last posted in October, 2021 a lot has changed. My father passed away. I've gotten my heart broken, again. I had major surgery and lost over 100 pounds. I've had some really hard, honest, raw conversations with myself. Grew closer with my family. Grew closer with my children. Learned to love myself once and for all.
The Grief
Papa Barbie passed away in February, 2022. It was the single, most difficult thing I have ever faced. He was my hero. The one who taught me to love baseball. The one who taught me how to do things. The one who taught me to drive on back roads of Wayne County.
It was somewhat unexpected, but he had been battling health issues for some time. He was home, in his favorite chair, just exactly where he would have wanted to be.
We suspected it was closing in on us because he started talking to family members who had passed in the months leading up to his death. My family and my sister's family had been battling the flu and then covid, so none of us laid eyes on him until the night before he died. It was shocking to see how much weight he had lost. It seems like just yesterday.
I think my sister and I knew when we left that evening that it would be soon, neither of us expecting for that to be our last goodbye. I went home and listened to "You Say" by Lauren Daigle on repeat which got me through the night. It was around 11 am when I got the call. My life has not been the same since. I miss you dad. We all do.
The Heartbreak
It was a few weeks before my birthday that same year that I reconnected with a guy I had gone out with a few times the year before. He had been dealing with issues with his father, I had to change my number, lost touch.
I was so happy to reconnect. We had deep, meaningful conversations. We went on adventures. I adored his kids and he adored mine. As silly as it sounds now, we even had future plans. We had even looked at different houses that would accomodate our combined 5 children. It was exciting.
In an instant it all changed. It was a minor thing, not a fight, infidelity, anything between us that changed. He started having car trouble (or so he told me) and spiraled downhill. We went from talking on the phone 3 times a day to me not hearing much at all from him.
Two days before Christmas is when I knew it was over. Barbie Jr. and I headed out to do some last minute shopping when we hit a patch of ice on the highway, spun out of control, and crashed into the guardrail. I was talking to him through the car sound system when it happened. I said to him, "Oh my gosh, we just wrecked. I have to go." I hung up. It was late the next day before I heard from him again. No text messages to see if we were okay, just silence.
I knew it was over. When we did speak the next day he was going to come drop off the gifts he had gotten us for Christmas and I told him not to bother. The last time I had seen him in person had been awkward and weird. I didn't have the energy. We ended things the day after Christmas.
I was devastated. We talked one more time after that, I had texted him to check on him, but that was it. But I vowed from the moment we broke up that I was going to spend 2023 working on me. One of those things that people say they will do but they don't. I meant it this time.
As time marched on, my heart hurt less and less. I picked apart the relationship like one does and figured out it had been a blessing in disguise.
The Brand New Barbie Girl
With the grief and heartbreak came more depression and emotional eating. In March, 2023, 2 months after meeting with a bariatric surgeon, my weight topped off at almost 292 pounds. I was so ashamed of myself. So disgusted with myself. I didn't love anything about that person who stared back at me in the mirror.
My own health had started to decline. I had to go on new medications for various things. My blood pressure continued to climb. I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. My asthma started getting worse from all the extra weight and I started having issues with my knees. I also learned I had a massive hiatal hernia that had been there for who knows how long.
I couldn't walk 50 yards without being miserable. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything because I was always tired and in pain. While my kids loved me for who I was, to me I was failing them. We were limited on what we could do because of me. I wasn't going to let it continue.
August 22, 2023 is the day that saved my life. Once I made the final decision the whole thing seemed to snowball quickly. I was so scared what I was facing but excited at the same time. I took a picture of myself in the bathroom at work the day before and I studied it that night before. A year from now I thought, I won't look like this. I won't be miserable. I won't be unhappy.
I woke up that afternoon after surgery in excruciating pain radiating into my right shoulder. The nurse told me it was gas pain. I remember laying in the hospital bed, shaking my shoulder and explaining to the nurse I was going to shake that pain right out. She laughed at me and said okay.
Once I got up and moved around that evening the pain eased up and I didn't feel so bad. I have had 2 c-sections and a hysterectomy so this pain was nothing. The pain that I experienced the next few days was still due to gas pain and Gas-X became my new best friend.
It's now 5 days shy of being exactly a year since that surgery and well, my life surely has changed. Today I'm down 115 pounds. My meds have decreased. I can do things with my kids and not have to sit a million times. I am happy.
I don't attribute happy to the weight loss. So many people think that bariatric surgery will automatically fix everything. I'm here to tell you that's false. Hard work and dedication is how you start to fix yourself. Difficult conversations, analyzing your actions, admitting when you were wrong. These are all things I have done.
One day when I was home alone I quite literally just started talking out loud to myself and to God. I laughed, I cried, but I got it all out. I asked for forgiveness for the things I have done. I remember saying, "God I just want to look in the mirror and love myself again."
I wish I could say I got right up, looked in the mirror and fell in love but that would be dishonest. But today, when I look at myself, I see a strong, determined, confident, hard-headed woman looking back at me. A woman who has been knocked down, time and time again, but gotten back up, dusted herself off, and gave it her all.
to be continued.......
- “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” ― Maya Angelou
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