Back in 2015, I had the most depressing birthday ever. I was
turning 30 and NOT happy about it at all. Fat, poor, single, and working a job
that I hated made me reluctant to admit that that was really my life and that’s
how I was leaving my 20s.
Well, today is my 34th birthday, and things are
different. Not completely different; I’m still poor and single, but I’m much
less fat, and I have a job that I care about a lot. I’m probably healthier than
I ever have been in my adult life. I even have a couple of 5Ks and a half
marathon under my belt.
34!!!
On top of that, I get to go to school. There’s a quote that
Google says Isaac Newton said (I don’t know if he really did or if that’s just
an internet thing, but regardless, I still like the quote), “If I have seen further,
it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Whenever I lug around 50 pounds
of textbooks, I think about that quote. With the scientific geniuses, the
healthcare advocates, and even the billions of people who have lived and died
who we’ve been able to learn from, we can see more and do more to improve
lives. Hopefully that makes sense and doesn’t just sound like rambling
gibberish. What I mean to say is that I’m amazed every day that we know so much
about the human body and how it works. It’s amazing to me that we’ve come so
far. I know, I know, we have SUCH a long way to go still, but that doesn’t take
away the miracles that have led to where we are now.
Just as incredible to me is that I get to spend my time with
some kind, generous, talented, smart, and fun people in the nursing program. I
mean, seriously, how lucky can one person be?
I’m a firm believer that 99% of the time, there are things
that I can do to make my life and my situation better. There are things out of
my control, of course, but if the last 4 years have been proof of nothing else,
it’s been proof that the power to improve was in my hands. I chose to have
bariatric surgery. I choose every day to make healthier choices. I chose to
apply to UVU’s very competitive nursing program. I choose every day to study,
do my homework, and take advantage of the educational and professional
opportunities given to me. As difficult and frustrating dating can be, I choose
to try it, anyway, in the hopes that I can find someone that can be a good
match for me (and who I can be a match for). In “The Princess and the Frog,”
Tiana sings, “I remember Daddy told me fairy tales can come true. But you gotta
make ‘em happen, it all depends on you!” Despite the fact that I never thought that my own fairy tale would involve a life-altering weight loss surgery or changing a whole bunch of adult diapers, I couldn’t agree more. Here's the song, by the way. I listen to it when I'm almost done running on the treadmill at the gym.
The point of this post is to say that I’m in a much better
place at age 34 than I was at age 30. I genuinely believe that all of the
improvements in my life have stemmed from making the decision to have bariatric
surgery. Because of the work I put into losing 150 pounds, I realized that I’m
capable of doing other hard things. Health, dating, school, and a cool career
are all blessings that have come because of the surgery. I wouldn’t have, and
COULDN’T have done these hard things without the experience of having surgery. I'm so grateful that I had the surgery and for all of the blessing that have followed it.
I’m a lucky 34 year old, that’s all I have to say.
