Why Now?

Every once in a while, I get asked:

"Why did you do this now? What was different this time? What made you decide to do it?"

And here's the real truth.

I did it because I could no longer see me when I looked in the mirror. I just saw a fat girl.

I was a fat girl before I was anything else. It's what other people saw first. It's what defined my life. It entered the room and met the people in it before I did. It dictated what I could do ... or not do. It put the perimeters on the way I lived.

And when I went looking for the me I thought was inside, I literally couldn't see her. The face that looked back at me in the mirror was unfamiliar. Her eyes were small and sunk into overstuffed cheeks. Her smile wasn't big enough to break through the extra face that surrounded it.

The bigger my body became, the farther away from the surface I fell. I eventually was so far away from my life and myself, that I could no longer identify me. No amount of squinting or staring or searching could bring me into focus.

And when you feel that invisible, you sort of stop feeling entirely. And when you stop feeling, you stop participating in your own life.

And that's no way to live.