My Inner Arrogance…I Mean, Confidence

A lot of people don’t understand the reasoning why I had a permanent surgery when it was solely my choice. It was 100% an elective surgery. Some people don’t understand why Brian and I are having it together which is solely our choice. Solely elective. There is no need for people to try and understand if they don’t get it. They also don’t need to assume or criticize either one of us. Why? Because it is our decision, our lives and I made the ‘courageous’ decision to put myself out there.  I am doing it because 1). I want to remember a year, five years or even when my kids are grown exactly what I went through. I want to know and want my kids to know that I was in a terrible place and I want to compare to my future life that will be happier, healthier and amazing.  2). I am also doing it because I want to truly educate those who really do care, those who truly want to learn about our lives and that support us. I want to potentially inspire people and help others that may be feeling the way I do/did because if it’s one thing I learned in this journey so far, I am not alone. I say things in a blunt-matter-of-fact-no-bullshit-added manner because I want everyone to know what I am going through in full detail, I also need it as my reminder for the now and the future. I want my kids to know this was a lot to do with them-our journey to get healthy, to be healthy, loving, amazing parents. I am proud of what I’ve said and I would say anything I’ve blogged about to a complete stranger, to my kids, to Brian, my parents, to myself.

The people I am not giving time of day are those who do not try to put themselves in my shoes or our shoes for that matter. The people that have never struggled with their weight and think this surgery was the ‘easy way out’. Or even if those that do struggle with their weight and they do not admit it- but yet they must have some right to judge what I have done or what we are going to do as a married couple. The questions of, “Well have you tried X, Y and Z diet before making the decision to have surgery?” By far the question I have gotten most frequently. Of course I did and I failed, just like 95% of society does with any diet. I am truly amazed at those who diet for life. They are freaks of nature.  In doing our research, we have found that SO many people cannot commit to diet changes, and we contribute to the failed statistic.

Most bariatric patients have done all they can to drop weight, as I did. It isn’t just a matter of diet and exercise like most people assume. Yes, that is an element of it. It’s those type people that assume it takes just those two elements and I chose not to communicate with them because they simply do not understand. I cannot tolerate those that don’t listen to my journey and yet they try to fix my issue without even considering my entire life has been nothing less than a struggle, with no understanding or insight into the research and preparation we have done. It’s a matter of forever life style changes. This surgery gives me 100% excuse not to over eat, eat sugary things, and drink alcohol excessively. My bad habits that haunted me my entire life (minus the alcohol-I discovered that at 20 years old) are literally now cut out of my life. Get it?  Cut out?  Like my stomach.

I have no apologies for anything I have said to anyone, blogged about or anything I have physically done. I will not tolerate this shit from anyone, any longer. This goes for both Brian and myself. I have become highly allergic to judgment, shitty comments, excuses and people who think they know my entire life and what I need to fix it. It must be a side effect of my surgery =). Oh what a tragedy, I gained arrogance in my surgery. I better go have a doctor look at me and get that taken care of-God forbid.

This blog is basically about my strength. Not weight lifting strength but the strength that I have gained inside myself, emotionally and mentally. I have found that I’ve gained this sort of arrogance, confidence I should say, about this whole journey to health.  Going back to my celebrity inspiration once again, Ronda Rousey, she has a fantastic quote about this topic of arrogance vs. confidence. She stated after one of her biggest wins in UFC, “Some people like to call me arrogant or cocky, but I just think, ‘how dare you assume I should think less of myself’.” She couldn’t be more right. How dare people assume or judge me for thinking highly of myself for the first time in my life. All of this effort I am putting into myself, all for the sake of becoming HEALTHY. Why be so harsh in judgement? I added years to my life with this surgery-why is that such a bad thing? It is not cosmetic to become the new skinny bitch like Miley Cyrus, it wasn’t out of boredom as if I had nothing else better to do. What it’s truly about is my health and goals in life. I guess it’s a bad thing that I am trying to be the best me. Why do people have a problem with that? I will happily talk with people who want to truly learn what my life is like now, or how it even was before. I will not talk to people-I absolutely refuse to talk to people who want to be nosy for reasons that aren’t coming from a supportive place. I will happily talk with people who want to support me- but to judge what I did in the name of my health and to make the best me I can be, is nothing short of nonsensical and will not be tolerated any longer. I am not stupid, I know when I am judged. My parents raised me the right way and because of them, I know have a good sense of character. I know who is on my side. I know who is judgmental. I know a lot about people’s character. There isn’t much that I cannot see within a person.

Since I started to put myself out there with this whole journey, I have had some unexpected support from people I haven’t heard from in years. I love this. I soak it in every time I get a text, phone call, private message. It has made me genuinely happy, a happiness I haven’t really felt before. I have had people whom I haven’t talked to or seen in years (20 years to be exact) contact me, asking if they can share my blog with a person they know will relate to me, to help their friend in desperate need, maybe  to educate them on the surgery or to feel less alone. It is people like this that keep me going, every single day. I am making a difference even though it is really, really hard for me to admit that I am doing so much good by putting my whole story out there. Even though some people may not agree with my wording or how blunt I am being, it is helping people. It is helping people who have had the surgery (some are in the closet still, some are not) think to themselves-‘Oh I had that happen to me. I feel less ashamed.’ What is so wrong with me being the way I am with this journey and how it is helping people? It isn’t wrong one God damn bit! I think the people that this is bothered by, the judgmental people, the people who think they know ‘best’ for me, it says more than words can even describe but in sum-that the issue is within them, not me. Projecting is the worst!

I made a huge promise to myself last week, before my surgery that I will no longer dwell on people who have sucked the happiness from me in this journey. I will no longer let them bother me or consume my mind one bit. I will not give them a second of my time. I will, however, surround myself with people who are excited, happy and ask me how I am doing-even if it’s once a week, once a year or once in 20 years. I will surround myself with people who have my like mindedness. The terrible saying I hated in college but I do appreciate now, haunts me still: “Misery is Miseries Company.” I think the same is true on just the opposite-I feel I can do great things when I have people who have my like mindedness. My goal is to spread that feeling to others. I know I’m good at it; filling people’s buckets with positivity. I will absolutely start speaking my mind to those people who disagree with my choices because I can. I am making the best choices for me and my very small family. I know this. I am confident. I am pretty sure I am an adult last time I checked and I make fairly adult decisions that I feel are the best for me/us at the time, whether I want to make those choices or not. Newsflash: I am not an adolescent. I make decisions that are pretty profound and everyone should be scared of that. That was another one of my goals last week before surgery: I want people to fear me with my words. Not truly fear me but my point, if I say I am going to do something, I absolutely will do that something. I will do it to my best ability and I will prove people wrong. This is my competitive edge and it is coming back to me every day. Whatever I say, I will do!

There were questions as to why Brian was not there for me at the hospital after surgery. He was there for the day/night of surgery. I feel as if I need to clear the air with something else that has been on both Brian’s and my mind involving that whole situation. We both felt pretty terrible about the questions we were getting about the trip he took. Brian had flown to Oregon last Wednesday morning, bright and early to finish his amazing tattoo that I had actually started for him as a surprise for his birthday in January. We had booked an appointment with the tattoo artist who is kind of a big deal/celebrity (Heather) to be finished back in January while we were still there. In April, we were supposed to go to Wyoming, where she lived at the time, but she had to move to Oregon and therefore, had to cancel the appointment in April. The next available time she could get Brian in was in late August. We booked our tickets to Oregon back in May. I marked it on my calendar but marked it incorrectly-I had put that the Oregon trip was August 17^th-19th. With scheduling my surgery, I planned it so that I could still go to Oregon the week before. I scheduled my surgery for August 25^th. They would not allow me to fly after surgery so this is why I chose the date I did. I did not realize that I had the dates mixed up until a couple months ago. We carefully debated on what to do with the mix up but essentially Brian told me it was my decision. He said he will do whatever I need him to do and be where ever I want him to be. I told Brian I want nothing more than for him to still go to Oregon without me. I needed him with me the day/night before my surgery, the day of my surgery and stay with me for a bit at night after my surgery. I knew I would be tired so I didn’t need company around me 24/7. I couldn’t imagine having a lot of company. I’ve seen the exhaustion that causes, which is more harm than good. My parents were taking care of me (and did a fantastic job) after surgery. This also influenced my decision of him going to Oregon. We both knew I would be in good hands. He was going to cancel his appointment with Heather in Oregon. I wouldn’t let him. I knew I would be OKAY. There wasn’t a moment Brian didn’t check in with me while he was traveling. We text messaged, SnapChat pictures, called one another. Brian is the best husband I could have ever been honored to marry. If there was any concern that he is a douche, that would have been well handled before we got serious. He is not a douche for ‘leaving’ me. I asked him to go, have fun and get something finished that I started for him. We have been happily together for nine years, yes that is 9 years next month. For people to judge the both of us for this decision even though I was in the hospital for something comparable to having my gallbladder out, ridiculous. Oh, and he had a fantastic time which made me happy and his tattoo is nothing short of completely bad ass which was my whole goal for his present. We will plan a trip to Oregon when I want to get my sleeve done and he is absolutely going with and I will be a better planner/more organized. There. Problem solved.

What I absolutely love about our marriage is that we are two completely separate people who make decisions together and the other person, be it me or Brian, always allows the other to do what they want. Communication is the key. There is no stereotype with us involving the, ‘I have to ask the boss’ type shit. We even have separate finances. Again, we don’t want the excuse of, ‘Well I want to buy a pair of shoes but I have to ask hubby first’. Absolutely, no. Never. If I want a pair of fucking shoes, I will buy it with my money, no questions asked, no judgment from Brian. If Brian wants to buy a video game, he does so with his money, no questions asked other than if I want to play the game with him. The only rule we have are that the bills are paid since that is priority, then we can splurge how we want. Brian wouldn’t ever judge me for what I do and vis-à-vis. We feel this eliminates so much complication that does occur in marriages. It is very simple actually: We do what we want-we communicate this, we buy whatever we want-we communicate this, and we travel wherever we want to go-together or separate-we communicate this. We love each other, we respect each other and that is fact. It is hard to find that in a significant other. We are not the normal couple. We definitely aren’t a cookie cutter relationship. We have our own non-traditional family traditions. We love that. We are so comfortable within our relationship. We love that too. I also believe those that know us on a more personal level, would agree with everything I said.

From this point on, we promised each other that we no longer have to answer to anyone why we do the things we do-as a married couple. It goes back to my statement-we are not adolescents, we make adult decisions whether we want to or not and we are adults in the matter. It is no one else’s business other than maybe both of our parents what we do. Our new philosophy is just as simple as that; no explanations needed. I may even make matching t-shirts that say that and we may just wear them together, with pointing arrows at each other. We are not the normal relationship or cookie-cutter type family. We never have been and never will be. It sounds like such a boring life and we see it in people and still agree. It will no longer be an issue from this point on.

This blog may shift relationships or friendships, hell I may even loose a friend or two. Unfortunately with my new found arrogance/cockiness/confidence, I do not care. The people that do care and truly want both Brian and I to do well and achieve our goals, will be there, at the never-ending-finish-line of this journey and root at loud as they can with bells and whistles. There is a difference in people and I am seeing it more clearly than ever. It makes me sad and extremely happy at the same time. It makes me sad that some people that should probably be asking how I am doing, haven’t said a thing about any of this to me. It makes me sad that there is judgement by people. I also am extremely happy that my journey is bringing people back to my life that in one way or the other, had lost the friendship connection. It feels as if our friendship wires were fused back together, all because they read, enjoy and try to understand my blog. They talk to me about it. Yet, I feel bad that sometimes I don’t feel like a big deal to certain people that I feel I should be a big deal to, but more importantly I am realizing that I need to feel like a big deal about me, inside. I do not need their reassurance that I am a big deal to feel like one. Screw that. I may wait forever if I waited for other people to confirm my feelings. Those people that do not agree with me or my lifestyle, the judgment and how they feel they have a right to disagree with my lifestyle changes, that’s fine. You keep on keepin’ on. That small 2% of those type people do not make a difference to me. The rest of the 98% of people I am making a difference to, inspiring, helping for the better, they matter and they know they do. I tell them constantly. I have a large cheering squad that I will continue to perform for because that’s what I like doing! Confidence, arrogance or cockiness-I love it. I finally got my mojo back!