Gladness and Trepidation
Gladness and Trepidation
I have come to realize that as I got larger, my world became smaller and smaller. I could do less physically, I would avoid a lot of social situations to escape the potential for something embarrassing happening due to my size, and I retreated into my own imagination rather than doing, being and living my life to the fullest.
Worse yet, I diminished myself in my own eyes. I couldn’t even look fully at myself in the mirror, I didn’t feel worthy of the blessings in my life, especially at home, and I clung to a career that was ill-suited to my temperament because I lacked the confidence to try something else.
Over the course of my WLS journey I have stepped from that darkness of self-doubt into the light of self-discovery and self-confidence (at least to some degree)….and it is both more exhilarating and more frightening than I thought it could possibly be. I am more comfortable in my own skin, both physically and metaphorically, I am far more active to the point of being restless, I see the man I am becoming in the mirror and I no longer look away, and I now see so many more possibilities for my life than limits. All of those things fill my heart with gladness and a sense of well-being, yet there is also an underlying feeling of trepidation, too, because whatever substantive changes I still need to make in my life will also reverberate through the lives of people I love.
Being a devout introvert I have a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time mulling and brooding over what I plan to do before abruptly springing it on others just before I take action. That process works for me, obviously, but it does not work so well for those who would be directly affected by my actions. Since life changing actions have far-reaching implications and consequences, I know I must resist the temptation to take a head-long charge into the unknown without first discussing and debating the merits of my potential actions with the important people in my life. Lately I have been telling myself “patience, Jackass, patience….". It’s not that I am impatient with others….it’s that I feel impatient with myself…..I want to take action, any action, so as not to lose momentum, but I owe it to myself to develop a plan that is likely to work in the long run rather than to take off in a direction that offers some immediate relief from my own impatience, only to later find myself filled with regret. I am hoping that the patience part wins out and not the Jackass part.
RP
