I looked up my old post about LASIK surgery recently so I could give the link to a friend who’s considering the procedure. I’m not sure what word best describes the feeling I get when reading old posts, but it’s similar to the feeling I get when looking at old yearbook photos. It’s some combination of surprised/awkward/insightful/nostalgic. Surprawkinosalgic? Take note, Merriam-Webster, the first usage of that word started here!
I haven’t read through the entire blog since I wrote Half-Assed, and I don’t have any plans (or the time) to do so any time soon. Yet it’s surprawkinosalgic to see how my writing tone and approach have evolved over the years, and even more surprawkinosalgic to see how I myself have changed .
This section jumped out at me from the LASIK post, which I wrote before the bit about a laser burning out my eyeballs:
It was a pretty fun waiting room to be in since everyone was there by choice and was going to experience an improvement in the quality of their life. It wasn’t like other hospital waiting rooms where people tensely clasp Styrofoam cups of coffee waiting to learn if their loved ones will be okay. They had china coffee cups here. And cookies. I admit, I had a cookie, which I justified with the fact that I had to go home and take a five hour nap after the procedure. That cookie was lunch. And sooooo yummy. Good to know some of my cash was going towards quality bakery products.
I read this and immediately thought, “Wow, I used to be kinda’ psycho about cookies, didn’t I?” Today I would just eat the cookie and not have a Hamlet-esque debate about whether to eat the cookie or not to eat the cookie. And I certainly wouldn’t feel the need to justify eating the cookie to my blog readers. It’s a cookie. Get over it, Past-PastaQueen!
Of course, one could argue this change in my cookie-eating policies has led to my fat for FitBloggin’ dilemma. You’re probably right, Mr. Hypothetical Arguer Man. Now go away. Nobody likes you. This might be an example of how shifts in mental attitude affect weight loss and weight maintenance, but I can’t say I regret my more laidback attitude. I have often wondered if someone who’s lost a ton of weight has to become a fitness and health fanatic for the rest of their life to keep it off, or if they can just integrate it into a normal part of the life that is not any more or less important than other things in their life.
That there might be the “problem,” so to speak, which has led me to regain some weight (along with that whole constant chronic pain thing). I’m not a total psycho cookie monster anymore. When I wrote the LASIK entry, weight-loss was my biggest hobby. I wrote about it all the time. I thought a lot about preparing meals and planning my exercise routine. I read lots of weight-loss blogs. These days, I still think about exercise and meal planning and all that, but not with the intensity that I used to. And perhaps more importantly, I don’t miss it. That might be the reason I haven’t been bothered to work hard enough to get back down to my lowest weight again. I’m not miserable enough. Life is fine. Given the choice between going through life as a thinner person who is psycho about cookies and being a fatter person who isn’t, I think I’d go with the fat person. Actually, I’m sure I’d go with the fat person because, hey, I own a mirror. I also don’t care if people care if I care or not, which probably speaks more about my growth as a human being than it does to anything weight-loss related.
Whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, but I’m ok living life like that today. As long as I’m not eating a box of Lofthouse crack cookies every night, I think treats are fine, especially when you’re about to undergo a procedure that has a teeny, tiny possibility of blinding you for life. Life’s too short to freak out about cookies. I think Cookie Monster would agree.
"Smart, unflinchingly honest, and laugh-out-loud funny."– Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still AliceComments are now closed on all PastaQueen entries. The blog is an archive only so I don't have to deal with spammers. For fresh discussions please visit my new blog JenFul.
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