Reflection
For the last two days I've been in a training session with 22 of my peers from different parts of the business I work in. Yesterday I was looking around the room and was pleased to notice that, finally, I was not the biggest person, or even the biggest person in the room. Then I took a moment to think about the others who were bigger and I wondered if they were feeling as insecure as I felt at my highest weight, and if they were noticing their size relative to the rest of the room. I'd have to say they seemed fairly confident and comfortable, but I may have appeared that way to others in the past too.
I took the train home, and walking from the train to the car I was frustrated with two people in front of me. They were two women, very overweight, and they were moving slowly, but they did appear to be going as fast as they could. Again I had to reflect back and think about me from 6 months ago and remember how easily I would get winded. After I made the long walk to my car in the parking lot, and was pulling out of the lot after waiting in a long line up for the traffic light, I saw one of the two women still slowly making her way to her car. My heart went out to her, I wished I could have just squeezed her hand or something when I had walked by her.
I just felt compelled to share this, I guess it's partly because I'm beginning to define myself differently...closer to 'normal' (normal = not standing out because of my weight) and thinking about the more overweight people I saw was like getting to look at my old self through another person's eyes.
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