lifeisanadventure

sorry, can’t make it

Posted on by thenjaesays

In my lifetime I have been invited to more things than I can count, and certainly more things than I’d like to attend. Most of my life I went, even when I didn’t want to.

A specific not-wanting-to-go-but-going-anyway that I can’t ever forget, happened just days before my twenty-seventh birthday.  A coworker was getting married and invited me to her wedding and it was easier to go than to not, so I went with a few friends and my boyfriend at the time.

The day of the wedding I was so annoyed that I had agreed to go and was suffering from menstrual cramps so I took let’s just say more than your standard dose of ibuprofen. Jammed myself into a fancy getup and off we went.

My grandmother always told me the places you want to go the least sometimes end up being the best time, she was [half] right, I had a great time.

I drank the carafe of table wine and only got more boisterous and entertaining, so my friends were stealing the carafes from other tables and feeding them to me.

My boyfriend was, to be polite, straitlaced and my behavior was too much for him, so once I was snapping pictures up my skirt he announced we were leaving.

I sill vividly remember following him halfway outside like some sort of drunk Cinderella from the other side of the tracks; missing shoe, purse spilling out, shouting obscenities. Telling all my friends he was making me leave.

The drive back to my house is five miles, maybe. In that time I begin sobbing about my grandfather having just died (he hadn’t) and telling him how he isn’t any fun because he made me leave my friends, and he tucks all his shirts in (seriously, ALL of them!)

By the time we get home I’m on FULL ON CRAZY and he calmly tries to explain to my mom why he brought me home and what’s going on, but he isn’t even really sure …

I’m screaming and calling him a liar and my mom takes me into the bathroom where she holds me over the toilet and I continue to cry, nose dripping, retching and vomiting and still, for what appears to be no reason.

I remember my brother, from the pantry outside the bathroom asking my mother if it was okay to open some sour cream and onion potato chips; I keep throwing up.

When I’m “calm” I pull all of my short hair up into a sparkly purple hair tie and go back to the kitchen. Brother eating chips, boyfriend talking to my mom, me, sitting with my skirt up around my thigh, leg up and my mother telling me to close my legs and I go on about how I’ve already “shown everybody!”

My boyfriend, who it’s important to note, was a person I had talked about getting married to, and was leaving about 12 days later for Air Force basic training said he’d put me to bed and then head out.

It was too much for him, I mean, me, I guess. And while kissing my head he stuttered and stammered and said he couldn’t do it and broke up with me. He walked out of my bedroom.

I flew down the hall after him screaming, my mom telling him to just go, she’d take care of it (not knowing he just basically dumped me) … my dad walking in from somewhere saying he heard me screaming from outside.

I’m choking on my tears, on my words, on table wine fighting it’s way back up I’m sure… I run, barefoot, out to his car. I start yelling, trying to explain myself (I don’t even know what words are coming out) – he stares straight ahead as I slap my hands on the windows, shouting. He only gets out when my father comes toward his Jeep, to retrieve me.

Literally.

I am laying on the driveway. The only way he can leave is by running me over.

Insane. 

I fall asleep on a towel in my bed, sure that I am going to die in the night, crying that he’ll never talk to me again.

Dizzy.

The next morning I see that I called him after he left about eleven times. We have plans for my birthday that day, he doesn’t call.

He doesn’t check up on me, he doesn’t come over, he doesn’t respond at all.

A text message – before texting everyone instead of calling had even caught on –

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do this.”

I later find out that his mother was mentally ill, and my outburst, a one-time-thing or not, triggered something in him and that was that.

We (my mom & I) also learn shortly after this episode, that the amount of wine I had, combined with my more-than-recommended doses of ibuprofen could potentially cause “psychotic episodes”

Uhhhh, yea.

It was one of the most heartbreaking times in my life [then].  Now, it’s just a story my boyfriend likes to hear me tell at parties because I still think he thinks I’m exaggerating!

It’s laughable because it is so ridiculous.

Now, if I don’t want to go somewhere, I don’t.

Can ya blame me?

 

driving miss jae

Posted on by thenjaesays

When my family moved from New Jersey to Wisconsin in the early 2000’s, one of my brother’s and I would make the drive back occasionally to visit friends and see some family.  Depending on your route, and your stops, it could be done in about 12 1/2 hours.

We would usually leave after 10pm, and drive through the night, getting to our destination by early the next afternoon. If I was driving the first leg of the trip, it was more like an ankle. We would get from my parents house, maybe to the Indiana line, which was about two hours, before I would be yawning myself to tears. After busting my chops for a few more miles I would eventually swerve a little too much for his comfort and he would take over the duration of the trip.

EVERY. TIME.

Rightfully so, he teased me for years. He also assumed that I just didn’t want to drive and did this to get out of it. I wondered if I did, too, but really I felt exhausted from driving.

Years later, when I’ve moved to Massachusetts, Steve and I are making the drive to Wisconsin for that same brothers wedding. The trip is about four hours longer, and we agree to leave around 9 and split the driving. I’m sure you can guess how that went. Barely into NY and I can’t keep my eyes open, so we switch seats. He needs a break so in the morning I’m driving again, until I all but doze off behind the wheel and he shouts, demanding I pull over.

I promise you I never made a connection between my weight and endurance on a long car ride; but again, in retrospect I find myself sort of piecing it together.

In 2015, just under one year post-op, we once again are driving from MA to WI for my other brothers wedding. We talk about flying because the trip is a lot for one person to drive, and we know that’s what happens, but we have a suit and a dress and favors and camera gear so we decide to drive.

I start the trip off driving and drive for almost six hours straight, without a break or, oddly enough, a complaint. We switch on and off for the rest of the trip and we joke about what a fluke that was, and I brag to everyone like I’d achieved something incredible.

After that, he’d “make” me drive more places we went, joking that I had recovered from my “driving apnea”.

I’d forgotten about any of that until this weekend when I was attending my girlfriends bridal shower about three hours from here. I was considering the logistics; would I go down the night before? Should I be local the whole weekend to avoid the driving all at once? I ultimately decide to drive down the morning of, and then home afterward. When I tell steve he laughs, “Who are you, me?” since he has on many occasions spent 8-10 hours in the car for one photography outing with friends. We laugh, and I don’t think about it again.

I did it; I drove something like 325 miles, with a several hour break in the middle full of mimosas and delicious food and socializing, and never got tired, or felt like it was too much. In fact, I got home, made us a late dinner and then watched some tv before going to bed at my usual time.

You might roll your eyes like “okay, losing weight made you able to drive longer distances? that’s a stretch” and ya know what, maybe it is. But in losing weight, I gained some things too, one of which was clearly increased energy and stamina, so let me have it 🙂

 

 

trial and error(s)

Posted on by thenjaesays

Yesterday I had a conversation with a stranger about weight loss, and then, of course, weight loss surgery. We talked for about fifteen minutes, she asked about the process, how it worked, and what kind of “diet” I followed now.

I was, as you might have guessed, more than happy to spill the details of the last few years. She congratulated me, and asked what I would tell my former self if I could go back and talk to her.

Without hesitation, I say ” I would tell her not to wait, to go to a doctor who would get her on this path sooner” because that is the truth; I have not a single regret, maybe only that I didn’t make the decision (three or four or) five (or six, or seven) years earlier.

She nodded and said “I bet. But would you tell her to try anything else? or just go right to surgery now that you know?” [curiously, not condescending]

“Ya know, of course I would want her to try everything else first – but I already did. I had tried every thing you could probably imagine and it didn’t work, or help beyond a temporary period”  She rolled her eyes “Oh, I know how it is.”

Nobody I know personally, who has had any type of WLS (weight loss surgery, for short) just woke up one day and was like “Shit, I’m fat, better get my stomach cut out” – although I am sure there are people who just skip over everything until a point where it is just too late and it’s a do-or-die lifesaving option.

Many of the people I know, had similar struggles to me, and to each other. On more than one occasion, sharing any part of my life-long (I mean, it was!) struggle/concern with my weight elicits “Oh my god, I was the same” or “YES, me too!

Here’s an abridged history of my personal weight loss trials prior to agreeing to let a medical professional remove 80% of an internal organ that I have had all of my life.

  • Weight Watchers – as far back as when there were cards you moved from one side of a little folder over to another one and all the way up through the points plus system.
  • Atkins – varying degrees, but I must have done the ‘induction’ phase at least thirty times in my life.
  • Juice Fast – only a handful of times; the shortest of which was 2 days and the longest was 7, just fruits and vegetables and water in my Vitamix all day every day.
  • Low Fat eating – Yep, just eating low fat foods, or foods with naturally low fat content, staying under, i believe 40g a day.
  • Adipex – prescription appetite suppressant/diet pill
  • Stacker – alleged world’s strongest fat burner, first time I took it I was so jittery i dropped a pizza I was serving onto the table, upside down.
  • Hydroxycut – Only once I think I tried this, three days later my grandmother died and I forgot to bring it in the bag I packed for her funeral; I still think she made me forget it.
  • Dairy free – For 48 days I had not a single stitch of dairy; no cheese, no milk products, no yogurt, nothing.

And of course, I made a ton of salads, drank all the water I possibly could and skipped plenty of desserts, fried foods and snacks. I used lettuce to wrap “burgers”, ate deli meat wrapped in cheese instead of on bread, didn’t put croutons on salads. I cut everything I could when i could. I did the cardio stuff at the gym, tried yoga, bought gimmicky exercise shit (shake weight / ab doer / wonder core / ab slide, to name a few), walked around parks and trails, bought hand weights easily a dozen times.

Once while Steve was away I ate nothing but salad for every meal, and walked about 3 -5 miles every day that he was gone – 2 weeks! I GAINED weight.

Sometimes your methods don’t matter, sometimes things are just out of your control. I didn’t believe that was true regarding weight loss, but my body was a traitor.

My surgery was a metabolic reset in addition to reducing the size of my stomach. And the only thing about it that makes me feel bad, is the anguish that could have been avoided for so many years.

 

rest assured, i’m eating.

Posted on by thenjaesays

When someone you know is losing weight, please refrain from saying “Don’t get too skinny”.

I laughed the first time, as if “too skinny” even seemed like a possibility from my place on the scale. The second time I didn’t laugh as much but thought “Huh, is that even possible?” and here we are at almost three years and ninety pounds later and it’s just not funny.

It’s not because it goes against being body positive or talking to people about their weight or their bodies in general; because I don’t have a hard stance on that stuff. I myself am an open, filter-less woman who will talk about and discuss almost everything.

It’s just annoying.
You don’t have to say anything.

Nobody talked about my body in fear of it getting too fat, but this too thin thing would apparently be an issue.

Nobody had anything to say when I loaded up my plate at a BBQ or holiday but plenty comment on my smaller portions now; “Is that all you’re eating?” “I hope you’re not starving yourself”

I don’t remember any comments on photos I posted about “blowing up” or “being huge” but I now get them about “disappearing” or “wasting away”

With a BMI of 40, a weight of 278 and blood pressure that far exceeded white coat syndrome at 178/100 nobody said shit. I had a great personality and was fun too be around …nobody ever said “Don’t get too fat”

Guess what? I got too fat.

Too fat to feel comfortable going on job interviews.

Too fat to try kayaking even though my boyfriend asked me to go every summer for five years (hey – we’re going on July!).

Too fat to (confidently) go to group exercise classes; or gyms.

Too fat for a dozen other things I can’t recall at the moment.

I got too fat for me.

I did that, and I am in absolutely no way saying that anyone else is responsible for what I did (or didn’t do) or let happen with my body, at all.

I’m also not saying I don’t appreciate the compliments and positivety thrown my way.

[ I do, so thank you! ]

I’m just saying … let’s maybe not say anything beyond the social niceties of “You look good” or “Hey, you look great” and let that be the gateway for a person to choose (or NOT choose) to continue on a conversation about their weight/weightloss.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was self-conscious about their previous body, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels a little self conscious after comments like “you’re wasting away!” Or “I hope you’re eating!” …it’s like you can’t win no matter what you’re doing!

Rest assured, I’m eating.

’twas the season

Posted on by thenjaesays

Everyone barfs.

In the fifth grade I barfed for what was probably not the first time, but the first public time and man did I go whole hog with that one. Christmas Eve mass, sitting on the altar as part of the children’s choir and I would be the one who announced the hymns. All dressed up in my green and black sweater dress with the matching cardigan from the Misses department at JC Penny.

Every Christmas Eve afternoon my dad and I would scour stores for last minute extra gifts for my mom, and stocking stuffers at a huge pharmacy that had everything you could dream of in the way of trinkets, treats and actual necessities. I always got a few of the first two, and then we went out to lunch.

When I recount almost any story from my youth, or my life in general my boyfriend playfully teases me about the food memories. “How the hell do you remember what you ate when you were at a friend’s house when you were twelve?” To some of us, food is nourishing in more ways than one.

So here we are at this diner who’s slogan for as long as I can remember has been “Where good friends meet to eat” … over the years I would have gravy fries after prom, middle of the night burgers with friends after one too many drinks, and early morning pancakes with a heartbroken friend who couldn’t sleep. Today, this seemingly average weekend afternoon I am having a pizza burger with my dad. For a few years I remembered what I drank, and if I had to guess now I would say fruit punch because it sounds juvenile and like a bad idea when poured on a pizza burger.

We sit munching on our respective plates and talking about how to wrap the odd shaped manicure kit or heart shaped picture frame. I say we just tie some curling ribbon around the little bag of jelly beans or Brach’s candy by the pound we got for her stocking. I had had at least forty-five jelly beans myself because the sheer variety of flavors was overwhelming you couldn’t have just one, or twenty.

At 5 pm after the running around and the eating, we clean up and dress up and head to church. I’m on the altar with at least three other people; one of which is a boy a grade below me and his mother who is playing the guitar for some of our songs and maybe someone else. We’re sitting in the packed church and despite being December, it’s warm. It’s hot. Or I’m hot. I’m also nauseous from incense or something and I feel slightly dizzy so I tell guitar mom that I think I am going to throw up. “Oh, you don’t want to do that” she said. I remember that exchange so well because even with a pizza burger fighting its way back up my gullet and my fifth grade brain I thought, who the hell says that to a kid? Or to anyone? Of course I don’t want to throw up. Not ever, never mind here on a literal stage in front of my peers and community. I didn’t want to at all, that’s why I’m telling you lady, get me out of here.

I have to stand up to announce the next hymn and I must have moved in just the right way to shake it up. I felt every damn jelly bean coming up in a hamburger filled fruit punch sauce as I started to stand, so I sat back down.

Oh god, it was happening.

I threw up, violently, all over the lap of my sweater dress. On the altar, in the only moment the church was silent the whole hour. I don’t know who can see me and I can’t care, I have to get this pizza flavored betrayal out of my body. A few ushers and maybe parents from the front rows come up to help me, so this doesn’t turn into one of those chain reaction vomit fests you see in the movies. I don’t get up with their prodding because I can’t.

I can’t get up because while I was vomiting my fun afternoon all over my dress I was also crapping in my queen sized tights.

I AM A 150 POUND 5th GRADER WHO CRAPPED MY PANTS WHILE BARFING ON A CHURCH ALTAR ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

I’m in the back room off the side of the altar and some nice man who counts the collection money after mass is trying to help me clean up with a brown paper towel from the ancient dispenser – the kind that says pull with both hands but you always have to turn an awkward dial to really get it going. Another lady is there, maybe some more ushers, and they ask me if I can go back out and find my mom. I’m about 10 but I’m pretty sure my response was the 5th grade catholic school equivalent of “Fuck no. I am covered in my lunch and I have shit dripping down the back of my leg.”

If ever there was a time I needed someone to get my mom for me, this was it.

I don’t remember what part of the mass it was but I know my parents packed up my brothers and we all left, somewhat discreetly out of the side door.

I cried all three miles home about what turned out to be a stomach bug going around. “Don’t worry, you’ll feel better tomorrow. Santa will still come if you’re sick. Why are you crying?” my mother asked from the front seat.

*sob*choke*sniffle*

“Because we’re supposed to go to Bennigan’s and now we can’t …”

I’ve always had a lot of heart, so I’m sure I was upset that I ruined everyone else’s good time; Christmas Eve tradition, my parents dinner out, my brothers missing their chance to drink root beer out of bottles and check the color of the soap in the restrooms and stopping to see our grandparents on the way home.

But when you’re sitting on a blanket in the car covered in your own vomit and poop and crying over not getting to go out to dinner… you have to assume my relationship with food was questionable since before I could even spell relationship.