I’ve had a pretty rough decade. The 2010’s have not been kind to me. I lost my Grandparents and Parents, all right in a row, every year or so.
My Mom passed in 2012, and yesterday was the 5th anniversary of her passing. I heard a lot of “it gets easier as time goes by” from friends and family, but one friend of mine was honest.
I remember it clear as day, like it was yesterday. It was at a 4th of July party, and my friend had lost her Mother the year before. People were asking me how are you doing, it’ll get better, yadda yadda yadda. My friend took me to the side and told me something I will never forget:
“You never get over it. It doesn’t get better, you just learn to live with it.”
Brutal, for sure, but right. You don’t get over not having a Mom. Ever.
What does happen is you learn a new normal – a different way of life. It’s always there, lurking behind a song or a smell or when you see someone who looks like her – the grief – and it can pop up so unexpectedly that it takes your breath away and fills your eyes with tears before you know it.
Months have went by without an incident like this, but it is always there, waiting to come out.
You do the only thing you can do, you learn to live with it.
This systematic smack-down is a lot like my weight loss efforts. I know I’ve said I’ve done Weight Watchers in the past and was successful. I never got to goal though. Close, but never goal.
The main reason why is because I think I’ve gotten over it. I know what I’m doing, I don’t need to pay Weight Watchers. I got this.
Only I didn’t obviously. Yes, I’ve never returned to my highest starting weight, but I managed to pack on 40 pounds over the last decade.
I need to be brutally honest like my friend was to me five years ago. I’m not going to get over it. I need this, because I can’t do it by myself. There will be times that I’ll get overwhelmed and stumble – plenty of times – but I have to learn to live with it. I have to live with the fact that I need to do this, I need this program, and I probably always will if I want to be healthy.
My 30 Point Life 
I don’t know what you are going through after losing your parents but I have lost my grandparents. My grandma was my best friend. I told her everything, everything! I woke up this last Christmas to learn of her passing thru the night. It was the worst day of my life thus far. Thinking of it makes me cray right now. She struggled with her weight my entire life. She had tried everything, including WW at one point. In many ways I feel that I follow in her foot steps. In fact thinking of her was one of the reasons why I joined WW. You are strong. You have been successful and you have lost 40 pounds! That is amazing! You realize that WW is a support system that you need to keep in your life. At the last meeting I went to one of the ladies said taking off the weight is the easy part. Keeping it off is what is difficult. You think you have it down so you quit the program. Then you slowly return to your old habits. If you are able to recognize that this is something that you need to keep in your life then you are one step ahead. A sign of strength. You got this!
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I’m so sorry about your Grandma! My Father died the day after Christmas, and it makes it even harder by the holidays. Thanks for your kind words!
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