Its my Blog-iversary!

 Today’s WordPress notifications included a surprise *Pat On The Back* so to speak. It has been 5 years since I created this blog making it my blog-iversary! (insert party horns and confetti cannon here) 

November 5, 2011. Seems like a lifetime ago. I was in an 11 year relationship. Planning my 2nd wedding. Running a successful business on the Las Vegas strip with 2 locations, grossing 7 figures a year. I had lost 80 pounds and I was on top of the world.

I started this blog with the intentions  of documenting my weight loss and creating a space where I would be held accountable for my eating decisions. Immediately after creating this site, I received notice that my most lucrative location was having its lease pulled due to Casino construction (the Linq project). I obtained an attorney and fought as hard as I could. With several News broadcasts and mounting legal fees, I lost.

May 12, 2012 I got married, it was on our 12 year anniversary. I was floating on cloud 9. I believed things were finally looking up. Hoqever my world came violently crashing down 2 months later when I learned my husband was having an affair. I was crushed to the core. Utterly devastated.  She was an employee of ours and someone I thought was a friend. (not to mention she had the audacity to attend our wedding and my bachelorette party). I allowed myself to be a ping pong ball until October of 2013 when I finally had enough and moved home to Chicago.

Three months shy of my 41st birthday and I was living back home with my Mom. 2 failed marriages. A failed business. Lost weight, gained back. After 4 years of not smoking I had started again and blamed it on stress. For a full year I was in a catatonic state. Everything made me cry. Pictures, commercials, movies, TV, songs, holidays, EVERYTHING! I felt like I lost it all. I lost my husband, house, business, love, friends. HE was the one who fucked up. Why was I the one who had to suffer? It just wasn’t fair in my book. It has taken me these past 4 years to be able to even type this without sobbing. I’ve never carried a desire for revenge.I’ve learned to forgive. 

I bring that up because when I was going through all of it, I thought this blog would be therapeutic. I believed it would help me cope. The problem was, I could never bring myself to actually type the words. I thought, if I were to put it in writing, if I actually wrote it down and published it, it would make it real. People would know. I wouldn’t be able to hideaway in the fantasy place I had created in my mind. As long as I didn’t make it public, I could stay cocooned. I liked it like that. I created a happy place. A place where I was still loved and where things were still the same. Where I could look at pictures and the people were the same, even though they had all changed.

Along the way I took small steps. I sold my wedding bands. Deleted him and his pictures from Facebook. Went back to my maiden name. Even tried dating.

What a fiasco that was. I had been separated & living in different states for almost 3 years when I was forced back into the dating pool by some friends of mine. They were thoroughly fed up with me sitting home one the weekends and crying to RomComs. I even tossed around the idea to use this blog as a ‘What happens when you have a  POF profile’. However those stories became a little too embarrassing for my own good. If I didn’t have people who actually knew me as followers I would have had no issue moving forward, but WOW, even the select few I told the stories to blushed. Ive made the decision to withdraw my profile on the couple of websites I had joined. Dating has just changed so much from when I was last single in 1999. Whatever happened to just getting an introduction for a face to face meeting from your friends cousin’s roommate?

So here we are, present day. I quit smoking back in February, joined the fitness center 2 months ago and lost 17 pounds so far. I received cortisone shots in both shoulders and knees. My flexibility and mobility has improved tremendously as a result. On November 9th I have an appointment with my bariatric surgeon to get the ball rolling. There simply are not words to express my excitement.

I’ve read fellow bloggers posts regarding their surgeries and its pure inspiration. I keep a notebook next to my chair along with my laptop. Whenever I see something that I want to ask my surgeon, or something that needs to be added to my preparation list, I jot it down. I want to be sure to plan ahead. Use the advice of others who have been through the process.

Looking back at everything I have been through over the past 5 years, and lifetime in general, I am more ready for this next chapter of my life than ever. Documenting my journey along the way. Life has knocked me down more times than I can count, showed me things I have never wanted to see, but one thing always remains true; weebles wobble but don’t fall down!