Dear Me

Dear Body:
We've had quiet the road you and I.  Born weighing in at 4 pounds.  Lungs not quiet there yet.  Decades of chronic ear infections.  Bronchitis episodes that were not treated.  Then puberty decided to rear it's head when you were in 3rd grade.  Bringing growth to a halt and things that I was not prepared for started to happen.  Of course that meant that we were opening up to a lifetime of weight struggle.  Actually, no.  You were fine until the PTSD set in.  I was told repeatedly that you were too fat and out of shape, but when I look at pictures I can see that you were not.  All that struggle for no reason other than to make the other person feel superior.  But when the baby was born with HLHS and didn't sleep for over three years things started to change.  There was a significant weight gain.  Mostly due to the lack of sleep and need for a lot of carbs and sugar filled caffeinated beverages.  Staying awake for years and dealing with a terminally ill child was extremely hard on you as it would be to anyone.  You brought not one, but three children into the world.  Each one with it's own medical issues.  Depression and anxiety ridden.  The world was not kind to you and the cards were stacked.  In February of this year we reached a line.  We are going to get our shit together.  It is time to set the extra weight, the trauma, the terror down.  I have read that the trauma weight will be the last to burn off.  And I am finding it to be true with you.  We will need to work together to get through the denied issues from years ago in order to let them rest.  We couldn't before because we were trying to keep both the baby and ourselves alive.  Now is the time.  Or we will not live much longer.  We should be happy.  We fought for this, we should enjoy this.  It's our time.  (Goooniees!!)