Amputee

Have you heard of the phenomena of when a person loses an appendage they often have ghost feelings that their missing limb is still there?

In the last year and a half I lost 45 lbs.

I have collar bones and knee caps.

When I don't eat my allergens, I have hip bones.

Apparently they were always there, just coated under layers of layers of layers.

I can still remember one day in 1981 when I was sitting on the toilet at home around 3:05 pm.

I was a latch-key kid, getting home about an hour or so earlier than my big sister.  Also, in elementary school I would never use the bathroom at school.  And by "never" I mean, not ever.  I didn't want anyone to hear me tinkle.  And I certainly would have died if anyone heard me plop.  I literally just went in there, as all teachers knew we did in the 80's, to comb my feathered hair.

Anyway, as I was rushing up to our front door, chucking my book bag on the ground, squirming, twisting, legs crossed while trying to unlock the door and unbutton my Calvin Klein jeans (nothing came between me and my CK's...) the lock and key finally cooperated.

With the door flung wide, despite all the mad rapists and murderers in suburban Mesa, Arizona, (I had watched too much nightly news) I ran into the house to the bathroom and stood before the toilet, trying to peel off my jeans.

And suddenly I had this warm feeling come over me.  At least, it came over the bottom half of me.

Something had, indeed, come between me and my Calvin Klein's.

Somehow I was able to pinch it, peel off my jeans and sit and finish what I had started.

And as I sat there, as I had done time and again, I began to count:

one
two
three
four
five

Five.

Five rolls of belly fat.  Going from smallest to biggest as they cascaded down my abdomen.

Yes, I remember this from 1981, and it makes me a little sad to know I wasn't counting squares of toilet paper or making designs out of the drywall patterns instead of what I would do each and every time I sat down on the toilet.

(Don't worry.  Remember, I've been in and out of counseling...it's okay)

All that to say, my earliest memories have always included some excess folds.  My mind remembers back fat and flappy upper arms and the comment a college friend said when she saw cellulite on my calves.

But sometimes, most of the time, my eyes and mind do not communicate.  At least of late.  And I sense those 45 lbs still there, even though the majority of them are not.

It's like there's ghost fat rolls I can still count.  Like I'm a fat amputee trying to learn life without fat as an appendage.

And I know it sounds strange.  But when, for years, you've carried extra weight and then it is suddenly (not instantaneously, but seemingly) gone, I really do believe it takes your mind a while to catch up with the new physical you.

This is the leg of the journey I find myself on right now.  I'm praying and trusting God to help my mind and my eyes and my reality line up...