Reality Check: High School

My prom dress (which I still have) was a size 12. I would love to be a size 12 again, but I’m quite proud that I’ve gone from being a 24W to a 16W at this point.

I started thinking about this because the current path of my weight journey has me reconnecting with people from high school. I’m a member of a Facebook support group focusing on healthy eating/exercise/weight loss started by a high school acquaintance. I also reconnected with a woman I went to elementary, junior high, and high school with when I started the process to get a lap-band. (More on the lap-band later)

I chose my lap-band surgeon after hearing him speak at one of the Methodist Hospital’s free seminars. He was funny & nice & had the Methodist Hospital seal of approval. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just have the surgery and go from there. My insurance company required me to prove that I needed it by undergoing a 6-month doctor-supervised diet. If you get to the point where a lap-band is a viable option under the guidelines of the National Institutes of Health (BMI 40 or over with no comorbidities, 35 or over with 1 comorbidity) then 6 months is not going to make a huge difference.

However, I dutifully went to the doctor’s office to start the 6-month plan. I knew that the surgeon didn’t supervise this stage; there was another doctor in his office that did that. I was surprised when I saw the name on the door: Amy Woehrmann, MD. If I went to high school with you, yep, it was THAT Amy Woehrmann. She’s married to the surgeon.

Since we had been through so many years of schools together, Amy and I got to talking about those days. She told me about a girl who had picked on her and been incredibly mean to her. That same girl had picked on me, and been incredibly mean to me! Now this may not surprise some of you that a mean girl was mean to everyone, but pretty, smart, petite Amy Woerhmann was Miss CCHS! She was a cheerleader. She graduated in the top of the class. She was sweet and nice. I wasn’t surprised that I got picked on because I was the nerdy type, and nerds always get picked on. But, Miss CCHS?

I’ve worked with high school students for most of my career, and I should have known, but this was proof, once again, that high school was hell for almost all of us. My new Facebook friend (hi LGD!) has mentioned being jealous of the smart girls like me. I was always jealous of the pretty drill team and cheerleader types. Seems we spend a lot of time in high school being jealous of others.

We’re grown ups now, though, aren’t we? My therapist says that women come into their own in their 40s and 50s. I know that there’s no way I’d want to do high school again, or even my 20s or 30s, though I enjoyed college.

That high school attitude continues, though, doesn’t it? How much time do we waste wishing we could be something or someone else? I look at pictures of myself in high school and one of my wishes was that I had known how cute I was then! But even today, we spend a lot of time wishing we could look different, thinking that if we looked different, our lives would be great.

My conversation with Amy taught me that even if I had been Miss CCHS, I would still have had hardships back then. There are happy, successful people of all shapes, sizes, and features; and there are miserable failures of all shapes, sizes, and features. I’m not meant to be a size 0. Perhaps I’m not meant to be any single-digit size. If I’m healthy at 150 lbs and my body fat percentage is under 30, then I’ll be happy. Truthfully, I’m pretty happy now at size 16W because I know I’m taking care of the body and the life that I have. Challenges come, no matter who you are or what size you are.  Likewise, happiness & fulfillment come no matter who you are or what size you are.

We wasted enough time in high school being jealous of others.  Let’s use our time these days appreciating who we are and where we are now.